


To Sing a Part in the Oratorio of the Stars

by KiranInBlue



Category: Star Trek: The Next Generation
Genre: Gen, Past Rape/Non-con, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Survival
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-22
Updated: 2014-07-22
Packaged: 2018-02-09 23:40:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 8
Words: 41,817
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2002497
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KiranInBlue/pseuds/KiranInBlue
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Data and Tasha are conducting a planetary survey mission when a disaster strands them on the surface. Supplies are low, and dark memories from Tasha’s past threaten to overwhelm her. And when Data starts malfunctioning, their situation turns into a race for survival.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> [Art for this fic](http://song-of-the-bad-wolf.tumblr.com/post/92549566844) by [song-of-the-bad-wolf](http://song-of-the-bad-wolf.tumblr.com).

_I heard the universe as an oratorio sung by the master choir of stars, accompanied by the orchestra of planets and the percussion of satellites and moons. The aria they performed was a song to break the heart, full of tragic dissonance and deferred hope, but somewhere beneath it all was a piercing refrain of glory, glory, glory._

-RJ Anderson, _Ultraviolet_

* * *

As with most remote planetary survey missions, business in the security department was running slow. Tasha flipped lethargically through the files on her console. Among the work in her inbox was a standard report on a malfunctioning phaser, an update on basic self-defense training for non-security personnel, and a proposal for new shore leave regulations. There was nothing more pressing than a report on an altercation between two ensigns from the day before.

She sighed and glanced up from the console. The rest of the bridge appeared equally as sleepy – after a week of orbiting Te’Ren’Ai II, the only spot on the bridge that was exceptionally busy was the science console, where Data was rapidly conferring with several lieutenants over a series of biometric scans. Tasha watched him for a moment, marveling inwardly at his sincere interest and enthusiasm in simple plant life.

She was just beginning to consider how long it had been since they had last had a shipwide security drill when a blinking light on her console caught her attention, alerting her to an incoming communication. She glanced down and opened the channel.

“Captain!” she said. “There’s an incoming message from Starfleet Command.”

Picard, perched in his captain’s chair, half-turned in his seat to acknowledge her. He inclined his head. “Send it to my ready room.”

“Aye, sir.”

She executed the command on her console, and Picard stood, taking a moment to adjust his uniform before heading off the bridge into his adjacent ready room.

Once the door had slid shut behind him, Tasha straightened, focusing her attention on the planet displayed on the viewscreen before her.

Te’Ren’Ai II was a ringed M-class planet, orbiting an F-type star. It was somewhat smaller than Earth, but with a considerably thicker atmosphere, and the continents were brushed a deep purple – according to Data, this was due to its plant life, which reflected short-wavelength visible light. On the viewscreen, thick clouds rested close to the surface, swirling with weather patterns – there was a nasty looking storm brewing in the southern ocean. It was a pretty sight, but Tasha hoped inwardly that there would be a change of scenery coming in with the Starfleet communiqué. If the mission would be expanded to a surface expedition, she would welcome the chance to stretch her legs on some open terrain.

Over at the science console, Data’s communicator chirped.

“ _Commander, would you please join me in my ready room?_ ”

Data looked mildly puzzled, but he tapped the badge and replied: “Yes, sir.”

He extricated himself from the small sea of science blues congregated around him, and headed towards the ready room. Tasha watched him go, wondering at what Starfleet Command had had to say.

With one last, considering glance at the closed door of the ready room, Tasha turned back to her console. She pulled up the report on the malfunctioning phaser – administrative paperwork or not, at least it was still work.

But she had only just signed off on the file – and sent out an order for a level two diagnostic to be run on all phasers from the same weapons locker – when her own communicator chirped at her.

“ _Lieutenant Yar, please report to my ready room_.”

“Aye, sir,” Tasha answered.

For both Data _and_ herself to be called into the ready room within five minutes of one another, there _must_ have been some change in their orders. Tasha hoped fervently that whatever it was, it would bring her more varied work.

In the Captain’s ready room, Picard sat at his desk, and Data stood before him, both of them the picture of perfect posture. When Tasha entered, Data glanced at her and nodded in greeting. He stepped to the side, so as to better share the Captain’s audience.

“There has been a change in our orders,” Picard said.

Tasha suppressed a sigh of relief.

“Understood,” she answered simply. “What are our new orders, sir?”

“There has been an outbreak of Arethian flu on the _Guilford_. The _Enterprise_ is to collect the antiviral agent from Starbase 11, and then rendezvous with the _Guilford_. _”_

“Aye, sir.”

But then, Picard continued: “However, Commander Data believes that it will not take more a few days to complete scans of the planet. Therefore, I do not see any reason to cut our survey short. Data can take a Class 2 shuttle to finish the scans, and I would like you to accompany him; he believes he may need to beam to the surface to collect samples. You should each take one officer to assist you. When the research is complete, you will head to Starbase 11, where the _Enterprise_ will return after assisting the _Guildford_.”

Tasha resisted the urge to groan. Just her luck – she would be getting a few _extra_ days to orbit Te’Ren’Ai II, and this time, without the demands of the ship to keep her otherwise occupied. At least, she supposed, she might get a few hours to explore the planet’s surface on foot. But she did not let her disappointment show; instead, she leveled her shoulders and inclined her head respectfully.

“Yessir.”

Picard acknowledged her with a nod. “Very well. You are both dismissed. Be in the shuttlebay by 1100 hours – you have been relieved of duty for the rest of the day.”

“Yessir,” Tasha and Data replied simultaneously, and they both turned to go.

A week and a half in close quarters on a shuttlepod, on a duty status of standby – it seemed space exploration really _wasn’t_ all the adrenaline pumping adventure it was made out to be.

\---

Two hours later, Tasha and Data sat at the control panel of the shuttle, and watched through the viewscreen as the _Enterprise_ jumped to warp and vanished with a twinkle. The sight made Tasha somewhat uneasy; for all their gallivanting about the galaxy, it was nice to be able to carry her home with her, and she found the sensation of being left behind distinctly unpleasant.

But she pushed the feeling aside, and focused her attention on the shuttle instead. Barely two minutes after their departure from _Enterprise_ , Data was already working, recalibrating the sensors and adjusting their orbit for optimal sensor visibility. Towards the rear of the shuttle, Ensign Chaval and Lieutenant Allara were busy setting up the cramped crew quarters – with barely enough bunks to house the four of them, and all in a single, claustrophobic room, it was not going to be a comfortable week. At the very least, Tasha reflected, as Data would not need to use his bunk, and the rest of them would sleep in shifts, it would be more tolerable than the interpersonal training tests they’d had back in the Academy.

For now, Tasha reclined in the co-pilot’s seat, content in Data’s quiet company. She flipped through the files on her PADD, cataloging the work she had for the week. As much as she disliked administrative work, there was plenty to do, and this shuttle trip could give her the chance to get much of it out of the way.

The console Data was working at beeped, and, curious, Tasha glanced over. A representation of Te’Ren’Ai II lit up the screen, with a peculiar collection of interconnected spots spiderwebbing across the surface. She frowned.

“They are energy fields,” Data explained helpfully. “They fluctuate erratically, and the smaller fields appear to transmit energy to the epicenter.” He pointed to the largest dot on the map, pulsing at the western edge of a mountain range on the northern continent. “We do not know the cause.”

Tasha blinked; she hadn’t realized that he had noticed her looking. But with a slow nod, she considered the information he offered her. “Could it be artificial?” she asked. Te’Ren’Ai II was inhabited by an intelligent, nocturnal avian species that had recently undergone an industrial revolution. She’d been monitoring the Te’Raians during their survey of the planet, so as to be sure that they wouldn’t accidentally stray into the line of sight of one the Te’Raians’ few observatories.

“It is not likely. The Te’Raians do not appear advanced enough to create a global energy system.”

“So you think it’s a natural phenomenon? I don’t think I’ve seen anything like it on other planets – do you have _any_ ideas of possible causes?” She frowned at the screen again, as if glaring at the data would force it to divulge its secrets.

“I do not,” he admitted. “And I do not believe we will discover the cause during this mission. It is likely that more thorough and detailed scans will be needed.”

Tasha blinked again, remembering her mission briefing. “But wasn’t there a scientific observation team stationed here full time up until a couple years ago?”

“Correct, but the energy fields were not present or apparent at the time. In fact, they did not register on our sensors either until two days ago.”

“Oh! That _was_ mentioned at the briefing the other day, wasn’t it? I didn’t realize they were so extensive!”

“They were not, at the time,” Data agreed. “Their growth has been remarkable – it is part of the reason I was hesitant to leave the survey incomplete. The network may vanish as quickly as it has emerged, and we would lose the opportunity to study the phenomenon – perhaps indefinitely.”

“That’s understandable.”

Data nodded, his eyes wide and serious in his characteristic earnest expression, and then he turned back to his sensors. Tasha was happy to leave him to it and quickly focused back on her PADD.  

She was inwardly grateful that their conversation had remained strictly professional, and she hoped that she would be able to keep the rest of the week’s interactions in similar waters. Data was all too willing to ask everyone and anyone for advice and support in his endeavors to develop a more humanlike persona, and he never seemed to notice Tasha floundering when he asked her.

It wasn’t that she _disliked_ Data – she liked him fine, respected him fully as a fellow officer, and appreciated his input. But she just didn’t know how to handle him. Data had the same air as a small child – innocent, eager, naïve. And Tasha wasn’t the motherly type; she knew how to protect, fight, and compete. But Data didn’t understand competition, and he didn’t understand the kind of independent, cordial friendships she tended to cultivate.

The relationships _Data_ needed were patient and gentle – Geordi and Deanna were great at that, but for some inexplicable reason, Data seemed to expect _Tasha_ to be able to provide the same kind of soft understanding. Tasha wasn’t so sure that she could. She was not a gentle person, and whenever she was around Data, she was terrified that somehow, she would do something ridiculously stupid to hurt him or betray his childlike trust.

The events of the Psi 2000 virus certainly hadn’t done anything to convince her that Data was right to have faith in her. Somehow, his trust in her hadn’t faded in the slightest after that incident – he hadn’t even sought out a better explanation for her intense reaction until she had offered it herself, weeks later – and if he had ever felt confused or injured, he never directed any blame at her. But Tasha knew he wasn’t invulnerable. And she certainly didn’t trust herself to care for someone so childlike.  

And so, while their interactions were amiable, she was careful to keep their relationship reserved.

Eventually, Chaval and Allara finished their work in the crew quarters, and migrated back out to the front of the shuttle. At first, Tasha paid them no mind and kept focused on her own work – but then, Chaval tapped her on the shoulder.

“Excuse me, sir. Would you like some lunch? I replicated some sandwiches for the crew.”

He held out a platter towards her, and Tasha recognized several different varieties of sandwiches – ham, cheese, Bolian cold cuts, and jarash root salad. She _had_ been planning to stop to eat after reviewing the proposal for new shore leave regulations, but at the sight of the sandwiches, her stomach rumbled loudly.  She grimaced at the sound and selected a ham sandwich; now was as good a time as any to take her lunch break.

“Thank you, Ensign.”

Chaval nodded cheerfully, and then he turned to Data. “What about you, Commander?”

But Data’s eyebrows lifted almost apologetically, and he declined. “I do not require nourishment. But I thank you for your consideration.”

“Oh – right.” He recovered quickly. “Lieutenant Allara? There’s jarash root, and the cheese is also vegetarian.”

Lieutenant Allara pivoted in her chair, her white antennae perking up in mild surprise. “Jarash root?” she echoed.

“Yes – you mentioned you enjoyed it while we were working in the crew quarters, right? I can replicate something else, if you prefer.”

“No, that’s fine,” she assured him, and she stood to collect a sandwich from his platter. “Thanks.”

“Of course,” he replied. He sat by the unoccupied console behind Tasha and selected another jarash root salad sandwich for himself.

Allara blinked at him disbelievingly. “You probably won’t enjoy it – most other species find it bland.”

“I’m curious!”

She simply blinked again, so Chaval took a large bite out of the sandwich and chewed contemplatively.

“Not bad,” he announced finally.

But when he thought Allara was no longer watching, Chaval slipped a Bolian cold cut into his sandwich. Tasha saw Allara’s antennae twitched in amusement.

Chaval had only recently transferred onto the _Enterprise_ a month ago, having served on a Miranda-class starship for three years previous, and he was already excelling in all his duties. He may have been small in size and stature for a Bolian, but he could hold his own against five burly assailants, and his phaser marksmanship rivaled Tasha’s own. And that wasn’t to mention the remarkable leadership he exhibited by diffusing tense situations with gentle humor and naturally commanding respect and loyalty from those he worked with.

By all usual standards, he was more than due a promotion.  Tasha, however, did not much like the thought of recommending a promotion for an ensign she’d barely known for a month; in selecting him to come along, she’d hoped that a week in close quarters would give her the opportunity to spend more time with him. By the end of the mission, she would be able to decide whether or not to recommend him full-heartedly for the position. At least, that was the idea.

Lieutenant Allara had been Data’s choice of geologist for the mission. Although Tasha had rarely interacted with the Lieutenant, she knew that Allara was one of two Aenar stationed on the _Enterprise_ , and that she was a fairly well respected scientist with a reputation for wry humor. Tasha was pleased to note that it seemed that Chaval and Allara got along amiably; some of the interpersonal Academy tests had involved tense personal relations, and the mission then had not been a comfortable one.

Tasha finished her sandwich, and she stood to collect another. That was when she noticed Data had turned slightly from his console and was watching them with an intensely inquisitive expression on his features.

“Data?” she inquired.

He glanced up at her. “Yes, Tasha?”

“You’re staring. Is something wrong?”

“No,” he replied. “I am merely curious – I do not perceive food the way most humanoid species do, and I am attempting to understand your experience. I have been told it is pleasurable.” His head tilted slightly, and he regarded Tasha with an earnest expression. “Why?”

The question took Tasha by surprise, and she stared helplessly at him for a moment. She _had_ hoped to discourage his seeking her out for this kind of conversation, but as he gazed back her, wide-eyed and curious, she found she couldn’t brush him aside. “Erm, I don’t know. It’s evolutionary, I guess. We need food to survive, so eating means you’ll live, I guess?”

“But your life is not in danger – your limbic system would not register this meal as much of a reward as it would if food was scarce. Yet food is still considered significantly pleasurable.”

Tasha wasn’t entirely sure how to respond to that. Her experience with food wasn’t exactly typical for most organic beings living in the plentiful Federation, so how could she know what being able to eat would mean to most people Data interacted with? Besides – it was definitely not something she wanted to talk about, especially in the presence of Ensign Chaval and Lieutenant Allara, both relative strangers.

But thankfully, before she could even start to formulate an escape, Chaval relieved her of the responsibility. “Well, I think food gets associated with life in general,” he said helpfully. “Not just survival – everyone needs it, so it becomes a community experience, and gets integrated into people’s life stories. So, food gets associated with memories and feelings, and other good things. Food becomes part of you, in a way. My father always said that if you ask people about their traditions, almost always they will mention food.”

“The Kreetassans consider eating a very private event,” Allara added. “And according to the study published by Storek and Park last year, Kreetassans objectively find eating to be a less enjoyable experience.”

Data absorbed this, visibly intrigued. “What type of memories do you associate food with?”

“Family’s a popular one,” Chaval replied. “Most people have a favorite childhood food – my dad’s old soufflé recipe always makes me feel like a kid again.”

Allara’s antennae twitched agreeably. “My _zhavey_ mother made a root stew whenever I was ill or sad. Even today it cheers me up immediately.”

Data was watching her expectantly, obviously hoping for a story of her own. But Tasha stayed silent. How could she contribute – to add to their stories of soufflés and stews by saying her favorite childhood meal had been the feast of wild onion that she had dug up from a river bank when she was so weak from fever she thought certainly she would not survive the night?

She glanced down at her untouched second sandwich, suddenly not so hungry anymore.

“I should go set up my bunk,” she said abruptly, returning her sandwich to the platter.

She felt Data’s bewildered gaze burning into her back as she retreated to crew quarters, and guilt rose like bile in her belly. But this wasn’t a conversation she could be part of. Her contributions would only upset Chaval and Allara, and she could not offer Data anything that would help him. She didn’t understand why he couldn’t see that.

By the time anyone else joined her in the crew quarters, Tasha was asleep.

\---

Two nights later, Tasha was rudely shaken awake by a sickening shuddering in the ship. Alarms had already begun to blare throughout the cabin, and she had barely enough time to swing her legs over the side of her bed before another jolt through the shuttle sent her tumbling. She swore darkly.

Tasha managed to scramble back to her bed and began to rifle under her pillow for her communicator. Simultaneously, she snatched up her uniform, which had fallen into a crumpled heap from its previously neatly folded position on her headboard, and tugged it on over the black tank and shorts she had slept in.

“Data!” she barked into the communicator. “Report!”

Another shudder lurched through the ship. Judging by a _thunk_ and the low groan that followed it, Chaval had just awoken as well.

“ _We have encountered a powerful electric storm_ ,” came the response, through a thick buzz of interference. “ _Stabilizing the shuttle is proving to be difficult_.”

“Is it a problem, Commander?”

“ _I believe so. Inertial dampeners and navigation are offline, and our orbit is decaying rapidly_.”

Tasha swore again, and she pulled herself to her feet. “Red alert, Ensign!” she snapped towards the top bunk. “Get to your station!”

“Aye, aye, Capt’n,” came the drowsy reply, and Chaval began to push himself up from his mattress.

Tasha pinned the communicator onto her chest and marched into the main cabin.

It was immediately obvious that the situation was serious. The shuttle had been plunged into darkness; only a few consoles still glowed in the dim cabin, and even the emergency lights had gone dark. The main source of light in the cabin came from the replicator, which leaped with flames, and from sparks that periodically showered from the ceiling in angry spurts. Data and Allara were hunched over one of the few still-flickering consoles, which had been opened to expose a tangle of shorted circuits and burnt-out wires. 

Another jolt sent Allara toppling, and a half second later, the console exploded in a shower of sparks

Data managed to leap back, protected from the blast by his own inhuman reflexes. He rolled back under the force of the explosion and leapt up immediately to push his way in between the flames now licking at the console. He scrabbled at the burnt wires for a moment – but then he pulled back, his uniform singed, and turned to Tasha with his eyebrows drawn closely together.

“We must abandon ship. The last surge damaged our maneuvering thrusters beyond repair, and the storm has already knocked us out of orbit. We will crash into the ocean in five minutes, twenty-six seconds.”

Tasha felt the bottom of her stomach drop out. “Have you sent a distress call?”

“No. The first surge blew out our subspace transceiver.”

She nodded tightly. “There is a research station hidden in the base of the northern mountains we can get a transmission out from. Can you transport us there?”

“I can only approximate. The targeting scanners have been fused.”

“That will have to do.”

Data inclined his head curtly. “I will begin the transporter sequence. Please prepare the evacuation.”

“Yessir.” She turned back to the crew quarters, where Chaval was standing at attention in the doorway. “Ensign, collect the emergency rations. Lieutenant Allara, get the survival kit. Be prepared for transport in ninety seconds – if you can’t get the supplies in that time, leave them.”

Tasha paused just long enough for her orders to be acknowledged, then dove into the clutter of debris by one of the science consoles. She began to push broken bulkhead and equipment out of the way in order to clear a path to the emergency medical compartment – a dermal regenerator could save a life while on the planet’s surface. When she uncovered the compartment, the door was dented and jammed shut, but a few well-aimed kicks and a phaser blast managed to pop it back out of frame. By that time, there were barely fifteen seconds left on her deadline.

Tasha hastily gathered up several large kits into her arms. One slipped from her fingers and crashed to the floor, sending hyposprays clunking in all directions, but she ignored it. She scrambled back through the precarious path she had cleared and stood in the center of the main cabin. Allara was already there, weighed down under as many supplies as she could carry, but Chaval was still struggling to move a heavy beam that had pinned the sack of rations to the floor.

“Ensign, leave it!” Tasha barked. “We have to move!”

Looking rattled, Chaval snatched up what few rations were accessible from the open mouth of the sack, and hurried to join them in the center of the cabin.

“Data, are you ready to transport?” Tasha demanded. She felt her fingers beginning to slip on another medkit, and she was certain even the slightest attempt at adjusting her grip would send the rest of them clattering to the ground.

Data glanced up from the console he was working at and nodded. “Yes.”

“Then let’s go!”

“Energizing,” he replied, and tapped out a sequence on the console. Then he stepped back to stand beside her.

Tasha felt the familiar tug in her gut of the transporter beam, and the shuttle began to dissolve around her. The last thing she saw before the beam enveloped her entirely was the port bulkhead breaching into the vastness of space and stars twinkling in at her through the rupture.  


	2. Chapter 2

When they rematerialized, they were standing in a windswept plain that appeared to be entirely populated by tall, violet grass. The plain sloped gently below them, and in the far distance, at the very base of the long hill, stretched a thick, alien forest, and beyond that, the shadows of mountains smudged across the horizon. The research facility was nowhere in sight.

Tasha’s precarious grip finally gave out, letting the medkits bounce into the tall, violet grass.

She scrambled to gather up them up, trying to ignore the cold dread creeping into her chest. “Is everyone okay?” she asked.

A small chorus of “aye”s answered her.

Tasha straightened again, medkids balanced precariously in her arms. She stared out across the alien landscape spread out before her. “Data, where are we?”

Data glanced down at a tricorder he had already fished from Allara’s survival gear. “I believe we are at a distance of sixty-eight kilometers from the research facility. There is a lake in the forest about 8.52 kilometers ahead of us, which spans most of the distance between us and the facility – we could follow the shore.”

A little under seventy kilometers – not quite where they wanted to be, but Tasha was grateful that the situation wasn’t much worse. At least they still were on the right hemisphere. As she considered the distance, Tasha turned her face to the sky – it was the same shade of off green that on Earth would have foretold a nasty storm. She found it unsettling.

“The Enterprise will notice our lack of communication before we get to the research center, but I think we should still head that way. We don’t know how long it will take for the Enterprise to get back out here, and it will be good for us to have shelter and the ability to communicate with Starfleet,” she said finally.

“That would be a prudent course of action,” Data agreed.

“Do we have much of a chance of being spotted by a member of the Te’Raian civilization out here?” Tasha asked.

“Slim, but yes,” Allara answered. “We aren’t under a frequented flight path and most Te’Raians should be sleeping – but there are a handful of nearby settlements, and because Te’Raian eyesight is excellent, if one did happen to fly over while we were out in the open here, they would almost certainly see us.”

“Then our first line of order is to get into the forest – then we can regroup and figure out the rest of this trip.”

“I would advise that we proceed with caution,” Data added, still peering at his tricorder. “Although this organism appears to be grass, it is actually a carpet of moss. It is covering a dead forest – most likely burned down in a fire – and it would take very little force to fall through.”

As if to prove Data’s point, Chaval let out a sharp cry as his foot unexpectedly broke through the moss and disappeared into the earth. He stumbled forward, and when he scrambled back onto his perch, soil clung to his boot. On closer inspection, Tasha found that although the earth she was standing on was rather firm, it became unstable a meter in either direction, as if a broken landscape were covered with a thin veil of cellophane.

“We’ll have to move slow,” she said tersely.

They set off toward the forest, careful not to step into any hidden pitfalls or to brush up against jagged outcroppings. Data and Tasha each took a side by Allara; Aenar blindsight was more than effective in most environments that involved reacting to common obstacles and threats, but the false soil of the field of moss was unusual enough to unsettle her and limit her blindsight. Each and every step was carefully tested before they would set their whole weight on anything – this often meant holding awkward position for several long moments at a time, with trembling legs. Yet despite their caution, they still fell through when the moss shifted unexpectedly beneath them. One at a time, Chaval, Allara, Tasha, Chaval again, slipped through the weak sheet of plant life and stumbled heavily into hidden ditches. Twice, even Data almost went tumbling himself, but managed to jump back just in time.

By the time they finally reached the forest, forty minutes later, their thighs and calves were burning in protest, and dirt caked their legs up to their knees – except for Data, of course, who looked and no doubt felt as immaculate as ever. Somehow, they had managed to escape without any twists or sprains, a fact for which Tasha was immensely grateful; even a mild injury could slow them down for days.

The forest was primarily made up of huge, fern-like plants that yielded easily against the passing travelers. Tasha supposed that they had most likely evolved to withstand powerful storms – a hypothesis that was supported by the variety of low-lying shrubbery that crunched underfoot. The whole forest was the same shade of deep purple as the field of moss they had just crossed, and the pattern of lavender light it cast on their skin gave the group an ethereal, ghost-like quality.

Once safely nestled in the protective foliage of the forest, they shed their gear and collapsed onto the soil. But they had not stopped to rest, and Tasha immediately began to rummage through their supplies, cataloguing what they had managed to save from their collapsing ship.

Even as they paused, Tasha felt her limbs tense, coiling tight like springs. They had been on the planet’s surface for less than an hour; they were well-fed, groomed, and only in mild need of a bath. But the instincts she had honed almost since birth burned with the understanding that survival was fought for, and the heat of those instincts forged her nerves into a knife that carved what she knew and what she needed into her mind, over and over again. Food. Shelter. Water. Bolians could consume rotting food. Aenar metabolism was three times that of a human – more so in heat. The planet was hot. Bolians and humans sweat. Aenar did not. Data could survive anything and needed nothing.

Beside her, Data crouched down and began to assist in sorting through the survival gear. Chaval and Allara helped open the packs and displayed their contents for inspection. Tasha half-wished they wouldn’t; the weight of the supplies in her own hands soothed the burn of survival like cold water. She gathered the rations close to her. The others could work through the rest of the supplies if they wished, but she would sort the food herself.

“Data, what do we know about the atmosphere?” she asked, as she piled up packets of dried fruit.

“We are approximately twenty-five meters above sea level, and the barometric pressure is currently two hundred four kilopascals. By mass, the composition of the atmosphere is 68% nitrogen, 10% oxygen, 17% neon, 4% argon, 0.08% methane, 0.06% carbon dioxide, 0.03% helium, and 0.11% other gasses.”

“Breathable, so long as we don’t decide to camp out on mountain peaks,” Allara commented.

Tasha nodded. “Temperature?”

“Presently 30.1 degrees Celsius. Planetary temperatures are relatively uniform – the poles have an average temperature of 10 degrees Celsius.” Data turned to Allara, his eyebrows lifted and knit together. “It may be difficult to regulate your body temperature,” he said, sounding almost apologetic.

“If only we crashed on frozen planet,” she said with a wry smile.

“Hang on-!,” Chaval was rummaging through a med kit. After a moment, he pulled out a pair of black squares, each four inches across and attached together with a clear, flexible band. “Cooling pads – would that help?”

“That would be effective,” Data affirmed, and he passed the pads from Chaval to Allara.

She slipped the band around her neck and pressed the pads against the base of her neck, where pale blue veins spiderwebbed just under her skin.  She let out a sigh of relief as the pads began to chill, powered by her own body heat.

“At least you won’t lose water as fast as the rest of us,” Tasha commented, and she gestured for Chaval to give Allara another pair. Allara unzipped her uniform slightly and applied the second set to the skin under her arms. 

Tasha continued: “Also, it feels dry – what’s the water vapor like?”

“8% of the atmosphere, by volume,” Data replied. “Unfortunately, our atmospheric water collectors will not be very helpful.”

“That’s what I was afraid of,” she said, and cast a rueful glance at the twin clear collecting containers that had been shoved in with the rations. “Well, they might do a little, and that’s all the more reason to stick by the lake.”

“It is practical,” Data agreed.

After counting out the protein supplements for the third time, Tasha announced: “We have enough food for about a day’s normal rations. We’ll have to stretch it, but hopefully the research facility will be equipped with replicators when we get there. If not – well, just in case, we should run toxicity checks on the local plant life while we hike.”

Even as she spoke, a hunger began to gnaw at her thoughts – not the desperate hunger of a hollow stomach, but the restless hunger that came from the knowledge of hard times to come. Her belly felt tight.

“It would be advisable to cover as much ground as possible,” Data was saying. “And the forest hosts significant biodiversity. As I do not need rest, I will forage when we stop for the evening.”

On some level, she wanted to argue with him. The restless hunger and instincts burning in her mind told her that _food_ was the priority, travel be dammed. Years of hard-fought survival were hard to unlearn. But at the same time, she knew he was right; the sooner they got off the planet, the better. They were not even at significant risk of starvation – a day’s worth of food stretched to four was uncomfortable, but not dangerous. So instead, she nodded.

The rest of their supplies were sorted through quickly. There were three packs, four atmospheric water collectors, two all purpose tricorders and one medical, four sleeping rolls, one storm-resistant tent, five filtering water bottles, three phasers, two dermal regenerators, and a plethora of various hyposprays – altogether, it was a respectable inventory, even considering their limited rations. The thought soothed Tasha somewhat.

The three packs were divided between Data, Tasha, and Chaval, as it was decided that Allara’s risk of heatstroke was too high to further stress her body. Data carried the majority of the supplies, but the food was evenly divided between them, and each pack sported at least one atmospheric water collector and one filtering water bottle strapped to the outside; if a pack was lost by whatever means, they would still have the bare necessities. The three phasers were again distributed among Data, Tasha, and Chaval, this time because of marksmanship and the limits of Aenar blindsight. Allara took a tricorder, set on read-out, to monitor the terrain and life forms that crossed their path.

Once organized, the group set off. They headed southeast, toward the lower coast of Te’Ren’Ai II’s massive lake.

It was slow progress; the thick foliage had been largely untouched by the avian Te’Raians, and the underbrush caught on their legs and snagged on their packs. The group moved in relative silence. The only sounds were the rustling of the underbrush and the quiet voice of the tricorder read-out. Nevertheless, as they picked their way through the trees, a variety of wildlife peered at them curiously from the boughs – reptiles, avians, insects, mammals, almost all capable of some form of flight. Thankfully, none of them looked either large or hungry enough to consider the group prey. Tasha watched them warily, hand on her phaser.

They continued like that for some time. As the hours passed, the white sun hiked up higher in the sky, and weariness began to weigh heavy on her feet. The temperature climbed. Water trickled into the atmospheric collectors, and Chaval and Tasha shared what little they collected between the two of them, but it barely wet their parched throats.

It wasn’t until late afternoon that the sparkle of smooth water began to shine through the leaves.

“The lake!” Chaval said in a hushed voice.

They scrambled the last hundred meters to the edge of the lake, where the thick forest gave way to a muddy bank. There, they paused just long enough to determine that there were no Te’Raians hovering overhead, then rushed to the shore and dunked the filtering water bottles under the waves. Tasha felt her mouth moisten at the throaty “glug-glug-glug” of the water flowing into the bottles, and she longed to chug down the cool water in long swallows until she could feel it sloshing around in her belly – but the filters needed several minutes to work. It almost pained her to set the bottles aside.

While they waited, they retreated back to the cover of the tree line, where they propped the bottles up against a few willowy trunks.

“I believe this would be a good time to rest and consume sustenance,” Data said.

And there was that restless hunger again, itching at her thoughts with a vengeance. Tasha swallowed and tried to shove it to the back of her mind. As much as she disliked the thought of depleting their already limited supplies, Data was right; they still needed to eat lunch, or they wouldn’t have the energy to cover as much ground.

“As I need neither,” Data continued. “I will search for edible substances to supplement our inventory.”

“Good idea,” Tasha agreed. “Do you want to take Chaval as backup?”

Behind Data, Chaval looked strained, but did not protest.

“No. My reflexes are sufficient to protect myself, and Ensign Chaval should rest as well.”

“Okay. But don’t go far – within shouting distance. I don’t want the communicators to go down when you’re in danger.”

“I will stay close,” Data promised, and he turned and disappeared back into the underbrush.

Tasha glanced over to the junior officers. “Lieutenant, how are you feeling?”

“I have a mild headache,” Allara admitted.

Chaval had dug out the medical tricorder form his pack and held it toward her. “May I?” he asked.

She nodded.

“Her internal body temperature is 1.5 degrees above normal,” he read out. “Hydration and electrolyte balance is fine.”

“You need to go cool down,” Tasha said. She handed Allara one of the water bottles. “Make sure there are no irritants or pathogens in the lake water and wet your skin – otherwise, use the filtered water. Chaval, go with her. I’ll set out the rations.”

They acknowledged her orders simultaneously and headed down the muddy bank. Through the branches, Tasha could see as Chaval crouching down to test the water with a tricorder, and when he nodded after a moment, Allara began to strip down to her black underclothes. Chaval held out a hand to take her uniform for her; she obliged, and he folded it neatly as she slipped first one foot, then another, into the clear lake. She bent at the waist and began to splash the water over her bare skin.

By the time they had returned, Tasha had divided a portion of their rations into three piles. She and Chaval had half a ration bar each and a packet of dried fruit to share, Allara had two full bars and her own packet of fruit, and they each had their own bottle of filtered water. If Chaval and Allara had hoped for more, they said nothing.

“Feeling better?” Tasha asked Allara.

“Yes, thank you.”

“Good, Start with this, and we’ll see what Data comes back with. And drink as much as you want. We’ll refill before we head out again.”

The other two nodded and began to tuck into their respective portions. Tasha glanced down at her own lunch, with a tight feeling in her stomach. Unbidden, an old, frightened voice welled in the back of her mind, urging her to pull out the rest of the rations and eat them all to protect them from those who would steal them. She ignored it. There were no gangs on Te’Ren’Ai II.

Allara was just finishing up her second bar when Data reemerged from the thick of the forest. They glanced up hopefully, and Data did not disappoint. He opened his up his arms, and a half dozen bright green fruit the size of crabapples tumbled to the ground, accompanied by a fistful of wide, near-white leaves.

“Tricorder scans do not suggest any toxicity to these flora,” he said. “However, it would be prudent to begin small-scale field checks before you consume any.”

Tasha nodded. “We’ll test for now – we’ll have finished the full battery of toxicity checks by the time we get to the research center, so if we need more rations when we get there, we can add them to our diet. Good work, Data.”

“Thank you,” he replied.

Tasha plucked up one of the fruits, and using her thumb, she pierced the flesh just enough so that clear, citrusy juice welled up at the skin. She smeared the juice against her forearm, then reached out to apply the same treatment to Chaval and Allara. Once she had done the same with a pulp made from a small portion of leaves, she stowed Data’s gatherings in her pack – in the front compartment, away from the rest of the rations, just in case they _did_ turn out to be poisonous.

To her dismay, she found that even with the influx of new rations weighing down the front of her pack, Tasha’s restless hunger did not abate. If anything, since Data had dumped his cache on the ground before her, the hunger roared stronger than ever. She didn’t want to press on through the forest; she wanted Data to show her where he’d found the fruit and leaves so she could strip the plants bare and feast. The tension that had wound her body up like a coil was making her jaw ache. She tried to relax her jaw, but the ache simply migrated to her temple.

Tasha turned back to the rest of the away team to find that Allara was watching her, a small frown pulling at her lips. When Tasha met her eyes, Allara tapped her own temple with two fingers. “You’re projecting,” she mouthed.

Tasha slammed up her mental shields so fast that Allara winced.

“I’m sorry,” Tasha apologized hastily, but Allara simply shrugged.

“It’s okay. Yeah, that’s better – I can’t hear you at all, now.”

“Sorry; I should have had those reinforced from the beginning,” Tasha said. 

Tasha had worked alongside Betazoids and Vulcans for years, and so she’d had plenty of practice constructing mental shields. She thought she’d gotten quite good at it, but she still tended to bleed through when she got particularly upset about something. And, of course, Aenar psionic ability was twice that of any Betazoid, and three times that of a Vulcan. If Tasha’s shields had lapsed, her thoughts must have been shouting in Allara’s mind; she hoped she hadn’t given Allara another headache.

But Allara dismissed her concern with a wave. “I could have blocked the negative effects. I just thought you might want to know.”

“Thank you,” Tasha replied earnestly.

Neither Chaval nor Data seemed to have noticed their exchange, which Tasha was grateful for. She didn’t want their attention.

Allara was still watching Tasha with some concern, but she did not push; perhaps she had heard enough from Tasha’s projections to understand Tasha wanted privacy, or perhaps she simply knew that there was nothing she could do to help. Either way, Tasha was glad for the space.

After a moment, Allara passed her a water bottle. “You should have something to drink,” she said simply.

Tasha smiled slightly and climbed to her feet.

“Thanks.” Then she addressed the rest of the team. “Let’s all get something to drink. Then we’ll refill the water bottles and get going. We’ll have plenty of time to rest in the evening.” Endorphins had been one of her best cure-alls for years, and she’d prescribed it for everything from Ktarian flu to sprained wrists. Maybe, if she kept moving, her body would flush out the stress on its own.

\---

However, by the time they finally stopped to pitch camp for the night, a good six hours later, Tasha was forced to concede defeat. The ache in her temple had grown into a throbbing monstrosity of a migraine, and the energy imparted to her from the endorphins seemed to have only coupled with the nervous energy of her stress. Her skin was crawling restlessly, and it was ridiculous; there was nothing overly dangerous about Te’Ren’Ai II, but she was quite literally _aching_ with the desperate need to get off its surface.

 _Typical_ , she thought darkly, as she set a small pile of stones aglow with her phaser. Starfleet had taught her how to survive frozen wastelands and searing volcanic fire plains, how to deal with xenophobic species who wanted to gut her before so much as getting her name, how to match muscle with a Klingon, charm with a Cardassian, wit with a Romulan. But merely _suggest_ there might not be enough food to go around, and she was a nervous wreck.

She itched to crawl into her bunk on the _Enterprise_ – lights in her quarters dimmed to half-strength, she would curl around her old, worn copy of _Les Miserables_ , tasting the familiar words on her tongue until her stomach loosened, her breathing evened, and she forgot who and what she was as the story pulled her in. Of course, that was all light years away.

The migraine gave a particularly painful throb, and Tasha hissed, bringing up a hand to press against her forehead.

“Are you alright, Tasha?”

She glanced up. Data was watching her with a wide-eyed, unblinking gaze.

Tasha hastily busied herself with her pack. “Yes, I’m fine,” she said.

“Are you certain? You appear to be in pain.”

She shrugged. “Just a headache. I’ll be fine.”

But Data’s brow furrowed, and his lips quirked downwards in an uncertain frown. “You do not seem ‘fine’. Would you like an analgesic hypospray?”

“ _No_ ,” she replied. Her temple throbbed again, but she grit her teeth and ducked her head so Data could not see her wince. She knew Data only wished to help, but somehow, it seemed irresponsible to waste precious resources on a headache that had been caused by her own inability to control her thoughts. “I just need some sleep.”

Data looked unsure, but he did not argue. “I hope you feel better,” he said simply.

Tasha forced a small smile. “Thanks.”

He nodded, then gathered up three empty water bottles that had been scattered with the packs and headed down to the lakeside.

They had stopped in a small clearing about ten meters from the side of the lake, where the underbrush and trees opened into a lopsided ellipse that was barely three meters in diameter. Pale white roots the size of Tasha’s forearm crisscrossed across the loose soil of the clearing, and above, the fern fronds parted just enough to peek out at a the spectacular image of Te’Ren’Ai II’s shining rings. But despite the tempting vista, the group stayed around the edges of the clearing, out of sight of any overhead Te’Raians.

In the far side of the clearing, Chaval and Allara were bent over the tent they had rescued from the shuttlecraft. The small shelter would be just enough to house the three of them – Data, who did not need sleep, would keep watch.

Allara muttered something to Chaval with a small, mischievous smile, and he shot her a shocked stare. Then, he burst out laughing.

Tasha glanced over at them. “How’s the tent coming?” She didn’t begrudge them their socializing – heaven knew it was a healthier response to the situation that her own – but she was eager to roll out her bedroll and sleep off the feeling of an ice pick picking away at her skull.

“Two minutes, sir!” Allara replied.

“Good – once you’re done with that, we’ll have dinner.” She held up a pack of rehydrated veal marsala field rations.

That spurred the junior officers sufficiently, and Tasha had only just begun to warm the rations over the heated stone that served as their campfire by the time they had returned.

Tasha gestured to a pack of mixed nuts that she’d set out a few feet away. “You two can get started with that. Allara, would you like plomeek soup or the lentil curry?”

“Lentil curry, please,” she answered.

Tasha tossed the pack to her, along with a bottle of filtered water, and Allara nodded her thanks.

The crunching of roots underfoot announced Data’s return from the lake. He approached the makeshift fire and crouched down next to Tasha, setting the now-full bottles next to the rations. Then he glanced up at her earnestly and extended one hand.

“If you would prefer, I will finish heating the meal while you partake in sustenance,” he offered.

“Oh – yeah, thanks.” She passed the ration pack over to him, and in exchange, he handed her a second pack of nuts.

She sat back and tugged open the package. Mostly, nut rations consisted of the high-nutrient Andorian variety, but the one Data had handed her had a handful of cashews and peanuts scattered in as well – a fact she was grateful for, as she found the Andorian nuts tended to have a bitter aftertaste. She fished out a cashew.

“This is almost like a camping trip,” Chaval said brightly. “I haven’t been on one since the Academy.”

“What – you haven’t done any survival training since the Academy?”

“Oh, it’s not that – it’s just that most of _those_ environments haven’t quite been prime _camping_ locations. I wouldn’t pick a frozen moon or a barren desert for my next shore leave.”

“I’ll have you know that Andoria has a _thriving_ tourism industry,” Allara retorted indignantly, but her eyes flashed with amusement. “I’d personally love a frozen moon about now – what I wouldn’t give to be sleeping in an ice cave tonight!” Pointedly, she adjusted the cooling pads pressed to her neck.  

Chaval grinned. “True enough. But this planet is very similar to the kind of environments my family would visit for outdoor vacations when I was young – if Data would just join me for a rowdy campfire dance, I could be almost completely sure this was just another camping trip.”

At Chaval’s informal cordiality, Tasha felt affronted on Data’s behalf. Stranded or not, Data was still Chaval’s superior, and too often had Data been on the receiving end of mocking friendliness from bitter ensigns.

But Chaval seemed sincerely kind, and as she caught a glimpse of Data’s expression, the sharp chastisement died in her throat – rather than disgruntled, as she would have been to have had such a comment directed at her, Data looked downright _pleased_. His eyebrows had lifted, and his lips had parted in that odd half smile of his.

Glancing back over at Chaval, she considered his remark in a new light. _Interesting_. Perhaps what she was witnessing was not thoughtless insubordination, but merely part of Chaval’s remarkable ability to instinctively read the people he worked with and adjust his behavior just so to command their love and loyalty. Indeed, suggesting to Data that he had a valuable place in “fun” group activities was probably one of the most effective ways to make him feel at ease.

“ _Commander_ Data,” Tasha muttered finally, deciding that if Chaval were going to warm up to Data, he could at least use his rank while he did it.

“Unfortunately, I do not know any Bolian camp dances,” Data told Chaval apologetically as he passed Tasha her heated ration pack. “But perhaps I can ‘tell a story’? That is a human camping tradition.”

“But aren’t those usually horror stories?” Allara said. “I don’t know if that would be a good idea in an unfamiliar forest.”

Silently, Tasha agreed – while the ghost stories of most campfire traditions weren’t quite as terrifying as the memories threatening to resurge in the back of her mind, the tension of even playful suspense was the last thing she needed.

“I do not need to tell a horror story,” Data said helpfully. “I remember everything I have ever read, so I can recite a wide variety of narratives.”

The whole idea still sounded a little ridiculous to Tasha – Starfleet officers playing at camping when they were in a serious survival situation? – but Chaval and Allara both looked intrigued, and Data’s earnest expression was almost hopeful. So she forced a small smile and asked: “What sort of thing did you have in mind?”

“I do not have a preference,” Data replied. “But most recently I have completed reading one of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes installments, _The Adventure of Wisteria Lodge_.”

“That sounds good to me – I haven’t read any Sherlock Holmes,” said Chaval.

Allara agreed readily, and Data looked to Tasha for approval. She offered him a small nod as well.

Data set aside the rest of the rations, and then turned back to them, with a prim, thoughtful expression plastered across his face. When he spoke next, he had assumed a heavily affected accent.

“’I find it recorded in my notebook that it was a bleak and windy day towards the end of March in the year eighteen ninety-two,” he began severely. “Holmes had received a telegram while we sat at our lunch, and he had scribbled a reply . . . “

As their meager dinner continued, Allara and Chaval sat in rapt attention, engrossed in the story and obviously enjoying themselves. They grinned at the appropriate times, gasped in unison, and their postures slowly relaxed until for all intents and purposes they did look like a couple of friends on a camping trip whom had simply decided to wear matching outfits.  Tasha even fancied she could sense Data’s childlike enthusiasm in his immaculate performance – there was just something about the gleam in his eyes.

And to Tasha’s surprise, as Data’s story continued, she felt some of the tension begin to drain from her own limbs. Not enough to chase the migraine away, of course, but for the first time in hours, she was finally beginning to feel like she could breathe.

“There was a bustle outside, and Mrs. Hudson opened the door to usher in two robust and official-looking individuals, one of whom was well-known to us a Inspector Gregson of Scotland Yard, an energetic gallant, and, within his limitations, a capable officer. He shook hands with Holmes and introduced his comrade as Inspector Baynes, of the Surry Constabulary,” Data recited – and suddenly, Tasha realized she _had_ read this particular Holmes story before.

She had been nine years old, every inch of skin caked with dirt and grit – a fact that she did nothing to remedy, for beside the lack of any social niceties to follow, it darkened her hair and helped her blend in with the shadows. The darkness wrapped around her as she crept silently through a decrepit house. A gang had recently vacated the premises, forced out by an outbreak of plague – if Tasha was lucky, they might have left something of value behind, ripe for the picking by whatever hungry little hands were brave enough to venture into the condemned fortress. But as the hours passed, her hopes had dwindled and her belly grew tight with hunger. The gang had picked the house clean before leaving, and had burned anything they didn’t take with them. She had just been about to give up the search when in the last room, forgotten in the dark space under the chest of drawers, Tasha found a ratty, moth-eaten book, the title completely faded from the cover.

It hadn’t been food, hadn’t been clothes or blankets, not even a lousy match, but it was a _book_ , and she crouched there and let it fall open in her lap. By the light of the full moon that filtered in through the window, Tasha could barely make out a single sentence that she read aloud breathlessly to herself: “ _He shook hands with Holmes and introduced his comrade as Inspector Baynes, of the Surry Con-sta-blurry_.”

Not a particularly scintillating sentence, true, but the few simple words had the same revitalizing effect as diving into a crystal clear pool in the heat of midsummer.

Tasha had clutched the worn book to her chest and raced home. Ishara had cried to find she had not brought any food, but they smothered their stomachs’ growls of hunger with the soft sounds of words through the night. Long after Ishara had fallen asleep, Tasha kept reading, losing herself, freeing herself, deep in the mystery of Sherlock Holmes and Mr. Scott Eccles and his incredible, grotesque experience.

And again, that very story was soothing her, this time imparted to her not by torn and dirty pages but by the gentle familiarity of Data’s voice. Tasha finished her meal and retired to the tent long before Data had completed his narration, but she continued listen intently from the other side of the clearing, until at long last, the comforting words lulled her into a uneasy slumber.

**\---**

Having children on Turkana IV was a luxury few could afford – Tasha and Ishara’s parents were not one of them. They gave their daughters little, for they had little, and whatever safety they could provide was fleeting. The one gift they left their children when they disappeared, just days after Tasha’s fifth birthday, was the ability to read.

It had been their father’s idea. There were few sources of joy on Turkana IV, and most of them were coveted by gangs and almost impossible to come by, or demanded more in exchange than their souls were worth (by the time Tasha was born, both her parents were shaking with withdrawal from the joy dust they could no longer afford).

But _books_ – few people knew how to read anymore, and those who did often considered it a waste of time. Who needed to _read_ when they hadn’t eaten in a week, when they were running from gangs and squatting in abandoned houses? Books didn’t even burn well. And so books were cheap – they were ignored when scavengers picked over supplies, kicked to the side during raids, worth next to nothing in an exchange. But they passed the long, hard hours, and so from the moment Tasha spoke her first word, her father read what he could find to her and slowly taught her her letters.

“You be quiet now,” he would say every time he and their mother went out scavenging for food. “Don’t make a sound – if you’re good, we’ll read a page together when I get back.”

The first book Tasha read on her own was _Le Petit Prince_ , and the brilliant, genuine smile that lit up his face when she finished it was worth more than a small feast – so rare were smiles from her weary parents.

Of course, the story didn’t truly begin to sink in until almost a year later, when her parents disappeared.

For the first several weeks after her parents vanished, Tasha had doggedly worked through the last book her father had left her: _The Catcher in the Rye_. She read slowly, haltingly, never more than a page or two a day. When her parents came back, she told herself, she would surprise them with how far she had gotten, she would make her father smile again, and everything would be okay again.

But they never returned.

“ _What does tamed mean? It’s something that’s been too often neglected. It means to create ties . . . one runs the risk of tears if one allows oneself to be tamed._ ”

She would not allow herself to be tamed again, Tasha resolved. She would stay wild, feral. For all the little prince’s fox might sing of the merits of being tame, of being unique and loved, what was the value of any of that when she didn’t know if she’d survive the month? No, it was more trouble than it was worth.

She kept reading after that, but she stopped thinking of her parents. Reading chased away the hunger, the fear – that was all. She engrossed herself in the words, letting her consciousness be swept away by the story, and when she read aloud, she could keep Ishara from crying just a little longer. She read everything she could get her hands on – _Arabian Nights, The Hobbit, Aesop’s Fables,_ even made a valiant attempt at _AMSCO’S Integrated Algebra I_.

She clutched to the books like a lifeline. When they had to flee a hiding spot, they often had to leave the books behind – too heavy, too inessential – but it was never more than a few days before Tasha found herself something new to read, even if it was splotched and dirty and nothing more than an instruction manual.

After her mother and father disappeared, words raised Tasha. They were her godparents – they protected Tasha through dark nights, murmured hope and encouragement into her ears, kept her sane. Tasha’s parents could never give her much, but by teaching her to read, they had kept her alive. 


	3. Chapter 3

Te’Ren’Ai II’s thirty-hour day meant that when Tasha woke, after six hours of fitful sleep, it was still hours from dawn. The uncomfortable prickling of the forest floor against her back and the tight squeeze of the tent brought the reality of their situation crashing back down around her. Her chest seized, and she swallowed hard.

Shoving the upwelling of cold anxiety to the back of her mind, Tasha sat up. At least her headache was gone.

Outside the tent, Data, who had been keeping watch during the night, sat quietly by the now-cool “campfire” stone from the previous night. At the sound of the rustles of the tent, he glanced over, and offered Tasha a nod of greeting.

“Good morning,” he said.

“Morning.”

“Lieutenant Allara woke a few minutes earlier – she is currently filling the water bottles at the lake.”

Tasha glanced toward the lakeside, but in the darkness of the early morning, she could make out only the dim shadows of the Te’Raian foliage.

“Shall I wake Chaval so we can get started, then?”

Data nodded. “Most Te’Raians should be beginning their sleep cycle now. We should cover as much distance as possible before the temperature increases.”

Tasha turned back into the tent and reached out to gently shake Chaval’s sleeping form. “Let’s go, Ensign, “ she said. “We need to get moving.”

Chaval groaned weakly in protest, but he began to pull himself upright.

By the time Tasha returned to the clearing, Data was organizing the packs. Rations and gear were scattered around him, and Tasha felt her belly clench as her eyes slid across the small pile of their remaining food. With effort, she wrenched her gaze away.

“All set?” she asked.

“Once the filtration process for the water is complete, yes,” he replied, and then passed her one of the white fruits that they had collected yesterday. “As no one has had a topical reaction, I believe we should proceed to the second step of the toxicity checks.”

Tasha had not been looking forward to this stage – new source of rations or not, the methodical caution of standard toxicity checks did very little to improve her hunger-related stress. But she nodded and obediently pressed a small slice of the fruit to her lips, keeping her mouth tightly closed.

When Chaval and Allara returned to the clearing, they did the same with their own slices. Once Data had told them three minutes had passed, they finally placed the fruit in their mouths, but they did not chew or swallow.

Barely a minute had passed when suddenly Tasha spat out the fruit.

The piece lay on the forest floor in front of her, glaring white in the general darkness of the morning. A bottle of water was pressed into her hands and, feverishly, she gulped it down.

“You experienced a reaction?” Data asked.

Only when she had drowned at least three cups did she pull the water bottle from her lips to answer. “I – my mouth burned, and my throat felt tight.” 

Data’s gaze sharpened. “Anaphylaxis?”

“No, it’s beginning to feel better already, and I can breathe fine.”

Well, relatively. Her breathing still felt tight, but no more than it had been ever since they’d transported to the surface. In fact – she felt a hollow sinking in her stomach as she stared at the offending fruit on the ground before her. What if what she had experienced hadn’t been a reaction to a toxic substance at all, but merely a physical manifestation of her anxiety?

But it would be too dangerous to test again. She fixed her eyes on the ground, unable to meet anyone’s eyes. It _would_ be just her luck that her anxiety about going hungry would cost her a potential food source.

“Are you alright, then?” she heard Data ask.

_Depends on whether you’re asking about my head or my body_ , she thought grimly, but aloud she only said: “Yeah.”

Later, Tasha would wish that that had been the worst development of the morning.

Chaval and Allara did not experience any reaction, so either it was only human physiology that could not handle the fruit or Tasha’s reaction truly had been psychosomatic. She struggled to redirect her attention as the others began to pack away the fruit, and she had made her way through an inner recitation of half of Starfleet’s protocol regarding first contacts when Data rudely pulled her back to the present by dropping one of the fruits on her head.

She glanced up. Data had a strained expression on his face, so, reassuringly, she offered him a wan smile and said: “I’m okay.” She tossed the fruit back up to him. He reached out for it – and missed.

The fruit thudded back to earth, and Tasha blinked. She had never known Data’s reflexes to be less than perfect. Apparently, Data was thinking along the same lines, for he was flexing his hands and peering at them intently.

“Are _you_ okay?” she asked.

“I am not certain,” he answered. “My motor system appears to be hindered. I am running an internal diagnostic now.”

Tasha’s mouth felt dry. The last thing they needed now was for Data to start malfunctioning. They had no advanced equipment, and nor did any of them have the expertise to even attempt repairs if Data became incapable of caring for himself. Data had been _meant_ to be the one unshakable, reliable asset they had in this whole situation, and for something to be wrong with him now felt like some awful cosmic joke.

Allara had pulled out a tricorder and was fiddling with its controls. She directed it towards Data, but then she looked up again, antennae curling slightly backwards. “The tricorder is running slow too.”

“Do you have any idea of the cause?” Tasha asked.

Allara twisted another control and listened intently to the tricorder’s slow but functioning readout. “There appears to be an unusual flux of electromagnetic energy around us. From these readings, it would appear that we are immersed in one of those energy fields Data and I were observing. I believe it is draining Data and the tricorder.”

“It is feasible,” Data agreed. “My internal diagnostic has found that a considerable number of my circuits have malfunctioned. If that is caused by the effects of the dampening field, I believe my condition will worsen in time.”

“But we can fix them?” Tasha asked quickly.

“On the Enterprise, yes. Granted that my condition has not deteriorated to the point that the effects are irreversible.”

Tasha felt a cold dread freeze in her chest at his words. Brain damage – he was talking about permanent brain damage. But, somehow, Tasha managed to swallow hard and continue. “Was the field here when we set up camp last night?”

“No,” Allara replied. “It must have shifted.”

“Then maybe we just need to get out of this field. How big is it?”

“A little over one kilometer in diameter, I believe. We are just about at the center.”

“Okay,” Tasha said, sounding more confident than she felt. “Then let’s get moving. The sooner we get out of the field, the better.”

The morning hike began more subdued than it had the day before; with the realization that Data may be in danger, it seemed that Tasha’s tension had seeped through the rest of their small landing party. Chaval and Allara still walked side by side at the front of the procession, but they were silent. Nor did Data seem particularly interested in conversation. Admittedly, he seemed less _stressed_ than he did merely preoccupied and perplexed, as if he were busy analyzing every millimeter’s movement of his limbs.

The tension grew only heavier once they passed the half-kilometer radius of the original energy field. They paused for a moment, and Tasha turned to Allara. “Report, Lieutenant,” she ordered.

But Allara met her eyes with a grim expression, antennae drooped a centimeter and a half from their usual position. “We are still in the field – at the center. It seems to have moved as we did.”

Tasha felt a prickling sense of foreboding at the back of her neck, but she swallowed it down. It was too early to be drawing any ominous conclusions.

“Alright. Let’s keep moving, then. These fields shift erratically, right? Let’s see if we can shake it by midday,” she said, and they set off again, the silence somehow heavier than it had been before.

While they walked, the early morning sky lightened to a dull, dark gray, and then a bright orange haze began to streak from the horizon as the sun slowly rose. The temperature began to climb and it seemed that the day would be even warmer than it had been yesterday. After about an hour of hiking, Tasha noticed a slight blue flush to Allara’s cheeks.

Tasha glanced over at Data, but he had not noticed; his eyes were fixed on his feet, brow furrowed as he avoided the crisscrossing roots in his path.

“Data?” she said softly.

He glanced up, and Tasha jerked her head in Allara’s direction. He followed her gaze. “Ah,” he said, taking in Allara’s flushed complexion. “We should stop to allow her to rest.”

“That’s what I thought.”

Data lifted his chin and directed a command at the two walking before them: “Ensign, Lieutenant. Pause here. We will rest for five minutes.” But his voice was slightly distant, not as steady as it usually was when he issued orders. Tasha found herself wondering how much longer it would be until she was forced to take command.

They quickly established a pattern after that: fifty-five minutes of walking followed by five minutes of rest. Once Allara’s skin was again damp with fresh lakewater, she would check the tricorder, shake her head, and they would set off again.

After another two hours, they began to add random twists and turns into their route, hoping that the energy field doggedly following them was only coincidentally moving along the same path and that a few sharp turns would separate them. But the next time Tasha glanced at Allara, she again shook her head softly.

“Still there.”

It was with heavy hearts that they finally collapsed for lunch and a midday break. There was still no change in their situation, and they had not so much as even _slightly_ deviated from the center of their energy field. It seemed unlikely that they would simply be able to walk out of it.

“It might be attracted to us,” Allara said. “Like a magnet.”

“It appears likely,” Data agreed.

Tasha said nothing. She knew that understanding the nature and behavior of the fields was a slow process and the first step in coming up with any sort of solution, but she couldn’t help feeling a little irked that after they had spent so much time observing the fields, Data and Allara couldn’t offer anything more substantial to work with.

“Is there nowhere on the surface that these fields _don’t_ occur, where something maybe interferes with their formation?” Chaval asked.

Allara shook her head. “There’s maybe a fifty kilometer radius in the plains on the southern continent where we haven’t observed any field formation, but that could merely be coincidence. In any case, it would take much too long to get there.”

“Nor is there any unusual geology in the area that might suggest any interfering substance,” Data added.

“So it sounds like our best option is just to get off the surface as soon as we can,” Tasha said. “Which we have been trying to do – we just stay on track.”

Data inclined his head in agreement. “Even if the energy fields are not restricted to the planet, we will need Federation technology to analyze the situation and develop protective measures.”

Tasha hadn’t even considered that the energy field might not be restricted to the planet. The thought of it following them into interstellar space suddenly made her feel very small and helpless.

“Right,” she said gruffly. “Let’s get moving as soon as we can. We still have a good forty kilometers to cover before we can even get out a distress call if Data gets worse.”

\---

As the evening began to roll in, off-green sky shifting to deep red, the terrain grew rockier, and more strongly sloped. To the extent that they could, they continued to travel around the base of the rocky hills, where the covering foliage was thickest. But at times they had to climb, and Tasha’s legs quickly began to burn. She savored the sensation – it grounded her.

She wished they could keep walking through the night and through the next day, not pausing until they reached the research center. While the endorphins might not be helping her quite as much she’d hoped, the hike was at least helping her direct the restless energy churning in her mind. But as night fell and they approached the hour that most Te’Raians would be waking from their sleep cycle, Tasha begrudgingly began to help the others search for a campsite.

It was Chaval who eventually called them over. “Hey, come look at this!” he said excitedly. “This is a great one!”

Tasha followed the sound of his voice back down the rocky outcropping to almost the edge of the lake, where Chaval was standing at the base. She followed his gaze – and felt something cold slide into her belly.

Chaval had found a large, dark cave at the edge of the lake. It loomed menacingly before her, and Tasha’s breath was suddenly like glass in her throat.

“There aren’t major life forms in here,” Chaval was saying cheerfully. “And it’d be great protection against any sudden storms that might crop up overnight. _And_ there’s water inside – if the water is safe, we won’t even have to leave the campsite to fill up on drinking water.”

He was right, of course, but Tasha’s skin felt clammy at the very thought. _No_ , she thought desperately. _Not here. Anywhere but here_.

Data had arrived as well, and he peered inside the cave. “It is acceptable.”

He stepped inside, followed by Chaval, and Tasha watched numbly as they dropped their packs at the mouth of the cave. Once relieved of his gear, Data moved further into the cave, out of the dim light filtering in from the dying day, to test the water that Chaval had discovered.

As Tasha stood there, stiff as stone, Allara emerged from the ferns. Her skin was damp with lakewater, and dark spots of moisture spotted her uniform. She surveyed the cave quickly. “Good find, Ensign!”

Chaval reemerged at the entrance to the cave, grinning broadly. “Isn’t it? And do I remember you promising me your dinner rations if I found the best camping location?”

Allara’s antennae twitched in amusement. “You _know_ I said no such thing.” And she pushed past him, making him laugh heartily.

But then, Allara paused and glanced over at Tasha. “Lieutenant Yar? Is something wrong?”

_The dark walls of the cave were closing in on her. Footsteps were drawing nearer, accompanied by mocking, echoing laughter: “Come out, come out, little girl!”_

_Tasha stared around wildly, but there was no way out. The gang guarded the way she’d come in and the back wall of the cave was smooth, unbroken. She was trapped, the gang was closing in…_

Tasha swallowed hard and hastily reinforced her mental shileds. “No. Just . . . inspecting,” she said, trying to ignore the slight waver in her voice. “It’s good. Good work, Ensign.”

With heavy feet, she forced herself, step by step, into the dark cave. Her lungs burned, as if there were no oxygen in the air, and her hands shook with nervous energy. Not meeting anyone’s eyes, she clumsily unbuckled her pack and let it fall to the ground.

She sunk to the floor beside it, struggling to regain her composure.

But then, a quiet sound caught on her attention, like a hangnail dragging on fabric: _drip, drip, drip_.

She stared around wildly, and breathless, she pinpointed the sound as a steady trickle of water that dripped from ceiling into the pool below.

_Drip, drip, drip._

_Tasha was pressed up against the cold cave wall. Cold water dribbled down the wall and dripped steadily onto her neck, but she dared not move._

_The footsteps were too close. “Where are you?” came a taunting voice. Tasha didn’t even breathe._

Go away, _she prayed._ Please go away. Don’t find me; go away.

_But then her whole body went cold. A cruel face was peering over the stone she was crouched behind._

_“Hey, I found her!”_

_A clammy hand wrapped around her arm like iron, and she screamed._

_Drip, drip, drip._

“I need to go,” she said abruptly, and scrambled to her feet.  

Tasha tore from the cave, with powerful, unguided strides that crunched the underbrush and tore vines. Her ears roared; her skin burned – she scratched at it desperately, leaving long red welts on her arms. _Get away!_ screamed a terrified voice in her head. _Run! Hide! They’ll catch you – they’ll find you!_

But then, from behind her: “Tasha, where are you going?” It was Data – she only barely recognized his voice through the haze of her fear.

“Leave me alone!”

“I cannot. It would be irresponsible to leave you. It is not safe for you to be alone in unexplored terrain.”

“Safe?!” Tasha echoed shrilly. “I’m never safe! Never!”

Data had caught up with her now, stepping deftly around ferns and vines even as she crashed through the underbrush. His eyebrows were drawn tightly together, and his lips were set in a perplexed, concerned frown. “We are not in any immediate danger, and you are one of the most competent security officers in Starfleet; I am confident you will be able to handle any threat that we are likely to encounter.”

“No,” she said desperately. “I can’t – no, I’m not safe, I can’t, everything’s out of control, I can’t do anything –!”

“Tasha, I must ask you to stop running. We are moving too far away from Ensign Chaval and Lieutenant Allara. We cannot leave them.”

Perhaps it was only a coincidence that she tripped over a vine at that very moment, or perhaps something Data said had reached the dedicated – albeit terrified – Starfleet officer she was. But as she went sprawling across the forest floor, she did not scramble back to her feet; instead, she curled herself into an unmoving crouch under the sheltering fronds of a giant fern and buried her face in her knees, breathing hard.

Data came down beside her. “Tasha,” he said, eyes wide and earnest. “What are you afraid of?”

“Everything!” Why didn’t he understand, didn’t he feel the cold grip of the looming threats, it was everywhere, everywhere—

But Data only looked more bewildered. “Are you frightened of me? Am I scaring you?”

Her instinctive response was an immediate ‘yes’ as her fear clutched at every scrap of her consciousness, but then – she glanced down at his hands, clasped loosely together at his waist, nonthreatening. Kind, innocent Data, whose gentle grip never betrayed all the strength of tripolymer composites, who never raised a hand or voice to anyone?

“I don’t know,” she said at last.

Data’s brow furrowed slightly. “I believe that in times of distress, humans often desire to be held. Do you--?”

“ _No_ ,” Tasha interrupted forcefully, feeling bile rise in the back of her throat. “No. I-I can’t.” Gentle or not, the thought of anyone’s touch on her made her skin crawl.

Data’s face fell slightly, but he nodded. “Is there anything I can do for you?”

“I don’t know,” she said again.

Data looked helpless, but Tasha just squeezed her eyes shut. She just needed everything to stop, she needed to be able to breathe, she needed her skin to stop burning, needed her stomach to stop churning – she needed to be in her quarters alone with her book, words filling her mind, pulling her away . . .

“ _Les Miserables,”_ she choked out suddenly.

“The novel by Victor Hugo?”

“Yes. Read – recite – it to me. Please.” Whatever apprehension she would have normally felt about letting him step into her most sacred of stories was overruled by her sheer desperation to make everything stop. _Les Miserables_ would help. She _needed_ those words.

Data looked uncertain. “The dampening field is interfering with my memory retrieval,” he said apologetically. “I do not believe I can be entirely accurate.”

“Doesn’t matter. Please.”

Data blinked once, then slowly, haltingly, began.

“In the year 1815, M. Charles-Francois Bienvenu Myriel was Bishop of . . . Digne. He was seventy-five years old and had occupied the see of Digne since 1806 . . .”

Tasha clutched at her knees and breathed heavily. The words washed over her, at first barely brushing at the edges of her consciousness. Her thoughts were moving too fast to focus. But she squeezed her eyes shut, and tried to concentrate on the feeling of the light wind that brushed against her skin and rustled the leaves – so different from the stale air of the cold, damp cave.

As her mind slowed, the story began to filter in.

“. . . About the epoch of the coronation, some affair connected with his curacy – just what, is not precisely known – took him to Paris. Among other persons to whom he went to solicit aid for his parishioners was M. le Cardinal Fesch . . .”

Ever so slightly, the horrible trapped feeling of the cave began to retreat. Tentative warmth tingled in her fingers as she remembered the last time she’d consumed these words: heavy book in her hands, the infinite expanse of space stretching out from her window – 13.8 billion light years of freedom. Tasha slowed her breathing, matching it to the rhythm of Data’s narration.

“That very evening --,”

_Breathe_.

“—the Emperor asked the Cardinal the name of Curé . . .”

_Breathe_.

As Data related the Bishop’s visit to the dying prisoner that Monsieur le Curé would not see, Tasha finally lifted her head. For a moment, Data paused, but when she did not say anything and merely watched him with a weary gaze, he continued.

It wasn’t until several minutes later that Tasha finally spoke.

“Thank you, Data. That’s . . . good.”

Data let the story trail away. He met Tasha’s gaze with a furrowed brow and a small frown. “Are you alright?”

“I suppose.”

Silence fell for a moment as Tasha focused her eyes on the dirt before her. Data seemed uncertain as to how to proceed, and so he simply watched her quietly. When Tasha eventually continued, her voice was so quiet that anyone other than Data would not have been able to hear it.

“. . . It’s the cave. I – I just can’t.”

Data frowned. “I have inspected the cave. It is safe.”

_“No_! _”_ Panic welled up in her belly, and for several moments, she breathed long, deep breaths, struggling to shove it away. “I – something really bad happened to me in a cave like that. It doesn’t matter how ‘safe’ this one is; it’s always going to feel like a threat to me, and it makes me so scared I can’t even _think_. I _can’t_. I can’t even go near it. Don’t ask me to. Please.”

Data considered this for a moment. There was still a puzzled frown fixed on his face, but when he spoke, he only said: “Then please remain here while we move the campsite. We will remain close enough to be able to communicate by shouting if necessary.” In a smooth movement, he got to his feet.

Tasha let out a heavy sigh of relief. “Thank you,” she muttered to the ground. “Sorry you have to give up a good spot for such a stupid reason.”

At that, Data blinked and turned back to her, head tilted curiously. “I do not understand emotions,” he admitted. “But I have come to understand that they are a necessary consideration when commanding individuals who experience them. Starfleet accepts ‘unacceptable psychological risk’ as a valid reason to modify or terminate missions, correct?”

She wanted to tell him that _this_ was different, but she didn’t know how. So she just shrugged and said: “I guess.”

“Then as commander of this mission, I have determined that the campsite poses unacceptable psychological risk to my crew. I believe that is a valid reason.” His voice was gentle, but firm, and as Tasha lifted her eyes met his gaze, she could see the spirit of Picard in the captain that Data would one day become.

Data blinked once, then turned and disappeared into the foliage.

\---

Data returned a half hour later and led Tasha to a new camp, this one more similar to the one they’d slept in the previous night. It was another clearing, a little smaller than the first nights’ camp, but still with plenty of space for the entire team and their equipment.

A small pile of stones was already red-hot for their evening campfire, and Allara and Chaval sat by it as they heated their ration packs. When Data and Tasha entered, they glanced up.

“You alright, Lieutenant Yar?” Allara asked.

Tasha nodded and took her place by the ‘fire’. Chaval, in his infinite interpersonal wisdom, said nothing and merely handed her a dinner.

She wasn’t sure how much Data had told them about why they had moved camp, but she wasn’t willing to answer any questions or meet any curious stares, so she kept her eyes down, her mental shields up, and said nothing.

Data told “The Knight’s Tale” from Chaucer’s _The Canterbury Tales_ that night, and when he was done, Allara and Chaval headed for bed. Tasha watched them go, but the thought of joining them in the crowded tent made her stomach churn. Sure, she’d had no trouble the night before – but that had been before she’d found herself in a dark, claustrophobic cave. And besides, her jaw was still clenched, and her thoughts still flickered with nervous energy. There was no way she was getting any sleep tonight.

So she simply shifted her position to bring herself closer to the heated stones.

“Are you not going to get rest?” Data asked her quietly. “My cognitive abilities have not yet been so strongly affected that I am not capable of keeping watch.” His tone was matter-of-fact, but there was a tightening in his brow.

Tasha tried not to think about his use of the word ‘yet’, or the expression of unhappiness that had crossed his face at the mention of his deteriorating condition. “I won’t be able to sleep,” she said. “I’d rather enjoy the fresh air.” Data opened his mouth to argue – ready to spout some medical protocol regarding away missions and overwork, no doubt – but Tasha dropped her eyes and muttered: “It’s an emotional thing.”

That kept him quiet.

Almost an hour passed in silence, the monotony only broken by Tasha reheating the rocks with her phaser. As Chaval’s loud snores began to filter through the clearing, Data finally spoke.

“Would you like me to continue telling you _Les Miserables_?”

Tasha glanced up. To her surprise, she found herself nodding. _Les Miserables_ had always been a private experience for her; she had never even read it to Ishara. The only reason she had asked Data to tell it to her earlier was out of a sheer lack of options. In any other situation, she would never have opened that part of herself to anyone.

Now, however, although she was feeling somewhat more stable, she found the idea of Data reciting the story to her . . . comforting.  He was gentle; he was unobtrusive. He had not demanded that she explain her experience of the book to him. Sharing with him was safe.

Data blinked once, and then he readily picked up from where they had left off. His voice was a little slower than it had been earlier, but nevertheless, it was soothing. Tasha closed her eyes and let the words seep into her consciousness. Her chest loosened; her breathing came more easily. Her mind slowed.

As Data continued, Tasha relaxed, and eventually – against all odds – she slept.

\---

Books of any sort quickly became a treasure to Tasha as she struggled to keep both herself and her sister alive on the hostile surface of Turkana IV. But it was the thick ones, with their eight hundred pages of girth and weight, and with firm, peeling hardcovers, that she loved the most.

Books were hard to hold onto on Turkana IV. It wasn’t that anyone else wanted them, but they were heavy and not immediately necessary for survival. When Tasha and Ishara had to run – which was often – the books were the first things to go. Especially the thicker ones. Small paperbacks might sometimes make the cut; she managed to hold onto her father’s battered copy of _Le Petit Prince_ for almost eighteen months. But she lost _War and Peace_ within two days of finding it, and _Gone With the Wind_ barely lasted four hours.

The weight of a thick, eight-hundred page book in her hands meant _peace_. It meant they were safe, that they hadn’t had to run. And however long she had that book, she could pretend that everything was okay. The story would suck her into another world, and as page after page passed she would get no closer to the end – sometimes, it made her feel as if the peace would _last_.

When she was twelve, Tasha stumbled across _Les Miserables_ at the bottom of a huge pile of debris. It was thick and heavy, with torn pages and a ratty cover that was held on with just a few stitches, and to Tasha, it was worth its weight in gold. Almost giddy with excitement, she’d brought it to the small encampment by the riverbank where she and Ishara had been staying for the past several days. When she arrived, Ishara was asleep, and Tasha did not wake her to share her find.

_Les Miserables_ stayed with Tasha for six and half glorious days. For those six and a half days, that beautiful book lay heavy in her lap, tethering her wild thoughts and spinning a web of human connection. She read hungrily in the daytime, until the last streaks of daylight faded from the sky, and then in the protective cover of the night, she scrounged for food, feeling a little less alone in the universe. For the first time, her little bubble of universe, previously occupied only by herself and Ishara, had truly expanded.

Incredibly, she found she _understood_ these people she’d never seen or met, people who’d never even existed, and somehow, she knew they understood her as well. They knew her hunger, her desperation, her despair. Turkana IV was full of other starving people – hundreds, thousands of other faceless strangers she raced to every abandoned loaf of bread – but when connections meant only more mouths to worry about, more inevitable loss, no one outside the gangs bothered to so much as acknowledge one another’s presence. _Les Miserables,_ written five hundred years ago and a hundred light years away, was the first voice that echoed Tasha’s hopes and fears back to her in words that were not hers.

When she ended up trading that beautiful book to be burned for a stranger’s warmth in exchange for half a smoked bird, she had cried. Ishara had yelled at her, and Tasha could not fault her – what value did an old book have over the food that kept them alive? But it felt as if a great hole had been ripped in her chest, and the tears fell steadily all night.

During the next three years on Turkana IV, Tasha was blessed enough to dig up a copy of _Les Miserables_ twice more. The first time, it only lasted three days, but the next time, she managed to hold onto the book for a miraculous month and a half. But eventually, that copy too left her possession.

Then one day, the Starfleet officers came.

Tasha and Ishara were crouched behind a boulder, watching a gang chase a ten year-old boy who had apparently tried to raid their stores. They boy fell, and the gang was advancing on him. Tasha felt her heart twist in sympathy; she knew he’d been caught.

But then, the officers were suddenly there, standing over the boy. They were strange people, clean and fed, dressed in almost identical suits of bright yellow, blue, and red. They appeared on the surface in beams of light and chased away the gang with more beams of light that burned fabric and dropped gang leaders without a mark.

Tasha had read about Starfleet before, in a biography of Erika Hernandez and her career as captain of the _USS Columbia_. And although the strangers’ uniforms didn’t match those on the peeling cover of _To Touch the Stars: The Incredible Journey of the NX-O2 and the Captain Who Commanded Her,_ when the officers started arguing loudly about “Starfleet” policy, Tasha peeked curiously over her boulder.

She did not dare creep from her hiding spot, for anyone who could fight off a gang was a dangerous force, but from where she was, she could hear their argument clearly.

Five officers were standing in a circle around the boy; one woman dressed in yellow stood closest to the boy with a wide, protective stance. She had sheets of shining black hair that hung to her waist, longer and more beautiful than any hair Tasha had ever seen before on Turkana IV, and as the woman spoke, her hair swayed with the force of her passionate gesticulations.

“Starfleet regulations can’t want us to leave this kid here! I mean, he _is_ human, so it’s not an internal affair, is it?”

But one of her companions, another woman dressed in red, shook her head. “Turkana IV broke off from the Federation. They’re independent.”

“That was what, three years ago? Technically this child was born on Federation soil; doesn’t that make him a Federation citizen, or at least somewhat our responsibility?”

“Li, I understand your concern, but they are _independent_ ; we can’t just intervene unless they ask for help.”

The long-haired woman – Li – snorted. “That assumes that they understand they _can_ ask for help.”

As Tasha watched, Li crouched down next to the boy. From her position behind the boulder, Tasha couldn’t see her face, but when Li spoke, her voice had become gentle.

“Hello. My name is Commander Li. What’s your name?”

The boy did not answer.

“You must be hungry.” Li rummaged in a pocket on the side of her belt for a moment, then held out a small, thin bar to the boy. “Here. It’s not much, but it might help.”

The boy stared at the bar, but did not move.

Undeterred, Li continued: “We’re Starfleet officers – we’re part of the United Federation of Planets. If you want, we can take you away from this planet, give you food and shelter and education. You won’t have to run from gangs like that anymore. Would you like that? Do you have family here you need to talk to?”

But to the boy, any powerful group of people was a gang, and inevitably, a gang always wanted something in return. So he blinked once, and then kicked Li in the stomach. When she doubled over in shock (the boy was too weak to do any real damage), he snatched up the bar and scrambled away.

Tasha watched, her breath caught her throat. She stared at the odd team of strangers, waiting for them to open fire with their powerful weapons – the boy was racing across an open field, completely exposed, and he had just attacked one of their own.

But while the strangers’ hands flitted briefly to their belts, they did not draw their weapons. One of the men, in bright blue, dropped to his knees next to Li, and the other three watched the boy flee into the trees at the very edge of the field.

“Well, there’s your answer,” said the woman in red who had been arguing with Li earlier. “He doesn’t want to come – you can’t exactly kidnap him.”

Tasha’s thoughts were racing. The biography of Captain Hernandez had elaborately detailed the values of Starfleet officers – equality, safety, nonviolence – but the idea of such an organization had seemed so distant, no less fictional than Tolkein’s Shire. For these officers to be standing before her, for them to have exemplified their values by showing kindness and mercy to a small boy, made Tasha feel as if she had just walked into a book.

Her heart was fluttering madly in her chest; simultaneously, she felt both stomach-wrenching anxiety and pure, feather-light elation. She had no way to know if Starfleet had stayed true to the values they preached, or if they, like the government and gangs on Turkana IV, had fallen to the siren call of greed. But if they hadn’t . . . Tasha swallowed hard, staring unblinkingly at the team. Dare she believe this might be her ticket off Turkana IV?

It was a risk. A _huge_ risk. Living on Turkana IV had taught her to avoid risks of any sort, but the thought of finally escaping this hellhole burned at the back of her mind. Just what was it that she had fought so hard to live for, all these years? Slow starvation, rifling through debris to find torn and moth-eaten books, a violent death at the ripe old age of twenty-one? If there was a chance to escape, even the smallest chance–!

Slowly, Tasha stood.

Ishara hissed sharply and snatched at her sleeve. “Tasha, what are you _doing_?”

But Tasha shook her off. “They can take us away from here,” she said simply, and then began to approach the strangers with slow, shaky steps.

The woman in red noticed her first, and silently gestured for the rest of the team to look. Feeling very small and vulnerable under their attention, Tasha dropped her gaze to dirt, but continued to move forward, until she was standing right before them. With effort, she forced herself to meet their eyes.

“I want to go with you,” she said.

The woman in red and the man in blue exchanged quick looks of something like surprise, but they recovered quickly. The man turned to Tasha and said kindly: “What’s your name?”

“I’m Tasha,” she replied.

“Do you have any family? Parents?”

Tasha glanced over to the boulder where she and Ishara had hidden, but Ishara was gone. At the edge of the trees, Tasha saw a bush rustle with a non-existent wind, and she thought she might have seen the shine of familiar blonde hair. Like the young boy, Ishara had decided the strangers were as dangerous as a gang, and when Tasha had stood to approach them, she had fled. Tasha could not fault her decision; she had no proof that Starfleet was safe, and Ishara had chosen not to take the risk.

Tasha turned back to the man. “No. It’s just me.” 

And so, completely alone for the first time in her life, Tasha jumped with both feet out of the only world she had ever known.

The team brought Tasha back up to their ship, using the same beam of light that they had arrived in. After several hours of being interrogated and interviewed and analyzed in Sickbay – they were kind enough to never touch her directly – Commander Li showed Tasha to a small room, where a huge bed of the sort only the richest gang leaders had on Turkana IV had was tucked into the corner and stars streaked past the window. “This is your quarters for the trip,” she’d told Tasha. “I’m sorry there’s not much here, but it’s yours, and no one will come in here without your permission.”

She then showed Tasha the replicator, explaining that it would make her anything she needed – food, clothing, whatever else she wanted.

“Will it make me books?” Tasha asked.

Commander Li had looked surprised, and impressed. “You can read?”

“Yes.”

“Well, it will make books, but we can also just give you PADD with stories loaded on it – it might be easier.” Tasha had no idea what a PADD was, but when Li handed her an odd gray tablet and showed her how to light it up, Tasha shook her head.

“I want the other books.”

And so Li showed her how to look up books on the replicator’s database and then to command it to create copies of whatever she wanted.

The moment Commander Li had left, Tasha replicated herself a hardcover copy of _Les Miserables_. It appeared in the replicator, shiny and new, with pages whiter than she had ever seen. No pages were hanging or missing, and the binding held firm as she flipped through the book. She hefted the heavy book into her arms, and immediately, she began to feel safe.

Tasha never lost that copy.


	4. Chapter 4

When they awoke to their third morning on Te’Ren’Ai II, Data’s rapid deterioration was immediately evident. The day before, he might not have been operating at peak android efficiency, but his performance had been no worse than that of the organic members of their away team. But that morning, there was a noticeable delay in his processing time and reactions; it took him a full second to register Tasha’s sleepy “good morning”, and when he went to stand up, his movements were slow and stiff.

Tasha exchanged a dark look with Allara and Chaval, but none of them said anything.

In almost complete silence, they packed away their supplies and got ready for the long day’s journey ahead of them. Chaval and Allara swallowed small pieces of the fruit they’d been testing for toxicity, and when they had no immediate reaction, the group set off.

Data was noticeably slower than he had been the previous day. His movements were methodical and calculated, but not always precise, in contrast to his usual perfect balance and dexterity, Data had begun to stumble over roots, bump into ferns, even completely trip over his own feet. He was just about as coordinated as Geordi had been the last time Romulan ale had found its way on board the Enterprise.

In order to accommodate him, the group as a whole had to slow their pace; by noon, they were three kilometers short of where Tasha had hoped they would be. Originally, she’d wanted to reach the research facility by the end of the day, but it was clear that they would not be able to keep up their brisk twenty-two kilometers a day that they’d covered previously. At this rate, there was no way they’d cover more than fifteen kilometers by nightfall. They’d have to arrive at the research facility sometime tomorrow.

Perhaps it was for the best, Tasha thought ruefully as she watched Allara trudge along ahead of her. Despite all the lake baths and cooling pads, Allara’s Aenar physiology simply was not equipped to deal with such long hikes in hot weather, and while she soldiered on bravely, her body was beginning to show signs of weariness and heat stress. She had less energy to banter with Chaval, and the back of her neck had turned deep blue with sunburn. Judging by the concerned looks Chaval kept shooting her, he had noticed as well. Even if Data hadn’t been slowing them down, they would have had to cut their travel time for Allara’s sake.

\---

Thus far, they had been lucky with the local wildlife. Most of the creatures they encountered fled immediately, startled by the unusual strangers. A few watched curiously, but they were far too small to pose any sort of threat. You never knew with new planets; some ecosystems hosted almost exclusively tiny, non-threatening herbivores, whereas others were home to fauna so large that even non-predatory beasts could be deadly with a lazy swish of a tail. Thankfully, Te’Ren’Ai II appeared to fall into the first category, albeit with a remarkably high number of flight-capable species.

But shortly after they had stopped for lunch, the constant chirps and trills that had accompanied them throughout their journey suddenly fell silent.

Tasha tensed. Chaval had also noticed the change, and he quickly met her eyes. She held up a hand. Silently, Chaval touched Allara’s shoulder to bring her to a halt. Data again betrayed his condition by almost walking headlong into Tasha before he noticed they had stopped. At first, everything was still.

Then there was a sudden moment high up in the ferns to their left, and almost before they could turn in its direction, an enormous, winged creature burst from the fronds with a blood-chilling screech.  It was twice the size of a bald eagle, with a wingspan of at least four meters – and that was not counting the needle-sharp 10-centimeter claw-like appendage that ended each wing.  

It had no feathers; its body was covered in a thick, leathery skin that was banded with alternating stripes of dark purple and black. A long, vulture-like neck ended in an apparently eyeless head and a beak far larger in proportion to the rest of its body than Tasha had ever seen on any other creature in all her years in Starfleet. The beak itself was almost five times the size of the head, viciously hooked and ominously black.

The creature soared right over their heads and snagged the top of a giant fern with its claw-tipped wings. The fern bent under its weight, and the creature twisted its neck to point its eyeless face directly at them. It shrieked again.

“Stun only,” Tasha muttered, mostly for her own benefit. But Chaval nodded and double-checked his phaser as well.

For a moment, the creature just or faced them, unmoving, and Tasha hoped that it would move off as soon as it had determined for itself that they were not a threat.

But then, the creature opened its enormous beak and launched itself from the fern, directly at Allara.

Allara, phaserless, scrambled backwards and dove behind another fern. Chaval’s phaser blast just barely clipped the edge of a wing. Tasha managed to land a sound shot against the creature’s chest – but it didn’t collapse. It let out another chilling screech and swerved out of the way.

The creature soared over Data’s head. But, rather than fleeing, it banked sharply and shot straight at Allara again.

Tasha swore. “Stun isn’t strong enough! The dampening field is affecting our phasers too!” She fumbled with the settings, and started to scramble toward Allara as well, ready to take down the creature with her bare hands if necessary.

Again, Allara was stumbling backwards – but her ankle caught on a white root she could not see, and she went sprawling across the dirt. The creature swooped down. Just as the tip of the first claw made contact with Allara’s outstretched arm, there was a sharp crackle and the acrid scent of ozone tickled Tasha’s nose. A spark leapt from claw to blue skin, and Allara cried out.

Chaval’s next shot caught it square in the middle of the forehead, exactly where in the center of where its eyes would have been. It immediately went slack and crashed to the forest floor, its left claw slicing through Allara’s uniform as it tumbled. She hissed sharply. 

“Allara!” Chaval cried, and he rushed to her side. “Are you alright?”

Allara was cradling her right arm, and as she brought her hand away, Tasha could see there was bleeding.

“It’s okay,” Allara said, with a wan smile. “It’s just a scratch. Just make sure the claws aren’t poisonous, then give me a dermal regenerator. I’ll be good as new.”

“What about that spark? Did it use an electric shock as a weapon?”

Allara shook her head. “It was a very weak shock; it scared me more than it hurt me.”

Tasha nodded, and picked up the tricorder Allara had dropped. A quick scan didn’t show anything dangerous, but then again, it wasn’t a medical tricorder. “Chaval, get me a medical kit. And Data - . . .” She glanced over to Data, where he was only just beginning to stow his phaser, after not having been able to fire a single shot. “I’m sorry, but give your phaser to Allara. Her reflexes are better right now.”

Data blinked once, processing the order, then inclined his head. “It is . . . reasonable.” He passed the phaser over to Allara, who took it with her good hand.

Data turned back to Tasha. “I believe it may also be the best course of action . . . for . . . -,” Here he paused again, eyebrows drawn tightly together, as if he were struggling to find words. “. . . for you to take command.”

Tasha didn’t meet his eyes. “Yeah. I was thinking the same thing.”

The thought of taking full responsibility for the safety of the crew, when she barely had control over her own emotions, twisted her stomach into anxious knots. But she knew there was no way Data could issue orders in his condition, and Allara had never had an away-mission command. Even if Tasha doubted her own ability to command the team, she didn’t want to pass along that responsibility to someone without any experience. Their situation afforded no room for error, and there was no form of backup for at least several light years. So Tasha swallowed her fear and focused on the medical tricorder that Chaval pushed into her hands.

“It looks okay to me,” Tasha said, examining the readings. “But I’m no scientist – here, you double check.” She set the tricorder on readout and passed it to Allara. After Allara nodded, Tasha ran a dermal regenerator over the small wound.

By the time Tasha stowed the regenerator and tricorder back in the medical kit and handed it back to Chaval to be repacked, there was no sign of the previous injury, save for the tear in the fabric of Allara’s uniform. Allara stretched her newly healed arm and wiggled her fingers. She grinned.

“For such a large and ugly predatory reptile, it really didn’t do much damage, did it?” she said cheerfully.

\---

By the time they set up camp for the night, they were only eight kilometers from the research center. Tasha still felt somewhat disappointed that they hadn’t been able to finish their journey that day, but it was reassuring to know that they could make to the facility by lunchtime tomorrow.

Data sat quietly by the heated pile of stones at the center of their campsite, painstakingly shifting through a pack of supplies to pull out a small portion of rations. Allara and Chaval were setting up the tent, and the water bottles Tasha had refilled were resting against her pack as they filtered the new water.

As Tasha came over to the red-hot stones, Data glanced up. His gaze appeared slightly unfocused, but he recognized her nevertheless.

“Tasha,” he said softly, and it was then that Tasha noticed an uneasy frown just slightly pulling at his lips. “There . . . there is information I should convey to you. You may find it necessary . . . in unfortunate circumstances.”

Tasha frowned curiously and settled herself into a cross-legged position in the Te’Raian dirt. “Information? About what?”

But Data glanced over to Allara and Chaval, who were still working with the tent a mere few feet away. Tasha followed his gaze.

“Privately?” she asked.

“Yes – that would be . . . preferable.”

So Tasha stood again and gestured for Data to follow. As they moved toward the edge of the clearing, Allara and Chaval shot them curious looks, but Tasha simply said: “At ease, Lieutenant, Ensign. We’re just going to lakeside”, and they turned back to their work.

Once they were out earshot of the junior officers, Tasha brought them to a halt under the fronds of a young fern.

“Okay, Data,” she said. “What is it?”

Data’s eyebrows were angled upwards, his forehead slightly furrowed. At Tasha’s question, his gaze lifted to meet hers, but almost immediately, his eyes slid away again.

Finally, he spoke. “It . . . it is possible that these malfunctions will . . . become so extensive that they in- . . . interfere with my basic programming. If my behavior algorithms become compromised, you may need to . . . deactivate me.”

Tasha stared. “Deactivate you?” she echoed. “I – what?”

“I am equipped with . . . a deactivation switch. I prefer not to let knowledge of it become widely known, but . . . in the event that I cannot control my behavior, you may need to make use of it so that I do - do not . . . pose a danger to the team.”

The expression that crossed Data’s face now was undeniably troubled, even in the world of android non-emotions, and Tasha instinctively wanted to deny any such eventuality, to assure him that there was no way he could ever be dangerous to his crew. But she knew he was right; it wasn’t his fault, but when his programming was compromised, he became a liability.

So Tasha nodded professionally, and it was with a gentle voice that she said: “Alright. Show me how to use it, and I promise not to use it unless I have no other choice.”

Data turned, exposing his back to her. “It is at the small of my back. You must . . . press it with two fingers.”

Tasha swallowed. “I won’t press it now, but . . .” She reached out and let her fingers trail along his lower spine. At first, she felt nothing out of the ordinary, and she ran her fingers back up, searching.

Data’s right hand came up to wrap around her wrist. Gently, he guided her fingers to a small indent in the center of the small of his back. “I believe that a phaser shot will also be sufficient to trigger it, but . . . I have not tested it,” he said.

“Understood.” Tasha let her fingers linger on the switch for a moment as she memorized its location. When she was confident she could find the spot again in an emergency, she withdrew her hand.

Data turned to face her again. He met her gaze steadily, but Tasha was suddenly struck with just how vulnerable he looked. His eyes were wide and searching, his features pulled into an expression more perplexed than usual, and there was a barely-perceptible slump to his shoulders.

Tasha felt the sudden urge to hold him, but she wasn’t quite sure how comforting he would find the gesture. Instead, she gave his shoulder a gentle squeeze and said softly: “Thank you for letting me know. I won’t share this with anyone, unless I absolutely have to.”

He nodded. “Thank you. And . . . if I do not survive--”

Tasha started. “ _What_?”

“I said: ‘If I do not survive’—“

“I heard you,” she interrupted. “I just – what do you mean, ‘not survive’? I thought, at worst, we were talking about permanent injury – not that that wouldn’t be awful, of course – but _death_?”

Data’s brow furrowed slightly. “It would not be . . . the same ‘death’ as in the . . . organic sense of the word. But the concept is comparable. If . . . my vital systems are compromised, Starfleet does not have the expertise . . . to repair them. I would cease to function entirely.”

It made sense; enough damage, and Data just wouldn’t be able to survive. If they could not find a way to protect him, it was the logical conclusion to Data’s condition; in any other situation, Tasha would have recognized it immediately. But it was as if she’d pushed the idea to the back of her mind and built an enormous wall around it – she hadn’t wanted to deal with the possibility, and so she had simply ignored it.

But Data couldn’t ignore the possibility. Tasha felt awful.

“I won’t let that happen to you,” she told him vehemently. “We’ll do everything we can to protect you, I promise.”

“The intention is appreciated,” Data said. “But if I . . . do not survive – I have been told that it is a human tradition to write a will. I do not own many . . . possessions, so I did not write one. I . . . believe that may have . . . been an oversight. I do not own much, but I would like for . . . the senior crew of the Enterprise to have them. You may . . . divide them amongst yourselves.”

Tasha was near to tears. Her throat burned, and there was a piercing pain in her chest that only intensified with each breath.

“Okay,” she managed to gasp after a moment. “Okay. But I . . . I promise I’ll do whatever I can so it doesn’t come to that.”

“Thank you,” Data said earnestly. He seemed largely unfazed by talk of his own death, and somehow, that made the pain in Tasha’s chest that much worse. He blinked once at her, then turned and glanced back to camp. “I believe . . . we should return.”

“Yes – you go, okay? I’ll catch up. I just need a second.”

Data glanced at her with a bemused expression, but he did not argue or question her. He simply nodded, then left.

When he had disappeared from view, Tasha let herself sink to the ground. Data was _dying_. She was the one in command, and Data – her crewmate, her _friend_ – was dying. And she was already doing everything she could. It took everything she had to hold back the tears.

By the time Tasha had gathered herself up enough to return to camp, Allara and Chaval had just finished setting up the tent, and had Data was seated back by the pile of heated stones, where he was finishing organizing the small portion of rations he had extracted from the pack earlier. Tasha went to collect the filtered water; it gave herself a moment to compose herself.

Allara and Chaval came to sit by Data, and he passed over a single pack of nuts with a slightly trembling hand.

“I apologize, but I do not believe . . . I can recite a story tonight,” Data told them apologetically. “My memory faculties have been significantly affected.”

Chaval smiled. “Don’t worry about it – it was always just for fun anyway.”

Data did not look any less guilty.

Tasha watched him silently, feeling helpless. Data had always been an adept officer, endlessly useful and capable in almost every situation, but he had always had to fight for any level of social competence with his fellow crewmembers. To have found an appreciated interpersonal role in their little team and then have his ability to perform that job stripped from him must have been a crippling blow – Tasha wished desperately that there were something she could do to help him.

But then Allara offered up her own solution. “Actually,” she said brightly, “I was thinking there was a Klingon folktale I heard recently that I thought was interesting, and I was hoping _I_ might be able to tell the story tonight. Data, I’ll need you to make sure I pronounce the names right.”

“Klingon?” Chaval echoed, turning to stare at her with lifted eyebrows. “I would have thought that was too violent for your tastes?”

Allara’s antennae twitched in amusement. “I said I thought it was interesting, not that I _approved_ of the characters’ actions.”

Chaval snorted.

“What is the story?” Data asked.

“ _Paq’batlh_ – it’s the story of Kahless’ rise to power.”

Data looked intrigued. “I have read the Book of Kahless . . . but I have not read _paq’batlh._ ”

“I’m interested,” Chaval put in. “I vote yes!”

The “campfire” tale that night was decidedly different in atmosphere, compared to those of the previous nights. As Allara did not recite the _paq’batlh_ word for word but merely paraphrased the important events, the story moved more quickly, and she was able to relate the entire epic-length libretto within a half-hour. But for all the increased informality Allara’s story-telling provided, Tasha felt a tenseness settle over the clearing. Data was visibly entranced by the epic Allara was recounting, but it was clear that, for the others, the change in their evening ritual had only served to remind them of the growing graveness of Data’s situation.

Once Allara had finally finished her tale, the wrappers from dinner were quickly packed away, and the stones, which had fallen several degrees in temperature, were reheated with a short burst from Tasha’s phaser.

Then, slowly, Tasha climbed to her feet. It was evident that Data had regressed to the point that he was no longer able to effectively keep watch on his own, and she was not looking forward to publicly issuing the order to organize shifts between herself, Allara, and Chaval. She knew that even if she muttered instructions to the junior officers in private, Data would immediately know she had judged him as unable to do the job himself when someone joined him on watch, but some irrational part of her wanted to spare him the embarrassment of learning of her decision in front of the others. That was silly, she told herself – Data wasn’t even capable of hurt feelings.

But nevertheless, she could not help feeling relief wash through her when Allara stood beside her and muttered quietly, unprompted: “I’ll be happy to take first watch; Ensign Chaval volunteered for second.”

Tasha nodded. “That’s acceptable. Plan for two hour shifts.”

“Understood, sir.”

“Good. I’ll go get some rest, then – good night, Lieutenant.”

Tasha made to move toward the tent, but she had barely taken a step, when Allara’s gentle hand on her arm suddenly brought her back to a halt. Tasha glanced at Allara questioningly, who offered her an apologetic smile.

“Before you go – I was thinking about that creature that attacked me, and I think I realized something you might like to know.” This time, she spoke at a normal, conversational volume, and Data glanced up curiously.  

Wordlessly, Tasha gestured for her to continue.

“Well,” Allara began. “That electric shock – it was really very weak; it couldn’t do anything but startle me. Even if I was the size of a small Terran rabbit, it wouldn’t have hurt me.”

“Okay,” Tasha said slowly, not entirely sure where this was going. “What does that mean?”

“If it attacked _me,_ it’s used to fighting large prey. But using those claws, while effective, would put it at too much risk of being injured itself. I think that the shock was part of its hunting technique – perhaps it uses electricity to paralyze its prey, but that wouldn’t work unless the shock it generated was a lot stronger.”

Tasha’s eyebrows lifted.

Allara rushed on: “So it’s likely that the field that’s affecting Data and our electronics also affected that creature. In fact, that might be the original role of the fields on this planet in some way or another. So they _do_ interact with Te’Ren’Ai’s ecosystem!”

Tasha nodded slowly as she digested this. Inwardly, she was impressed at the thought Allara had put into the attack. “Good deduction,” she said. “Does this help us do anything for Data?” She glanced over at Data, who was still sitting beside them and blinking unnaturally slowly. He seemed to be having trouble concentrating on their conversation.

Allara looked suddenly somber. “Not yet. But I’m a little closer to understanding the nature of the energy fields. I’ll keep studying them, and as soon as I know how they work or anything that can stop them, I will let you know.”

Tasha nodded once more, feeling the weight settle on her chest again. She knew Allara was doing her best, and that her observation had actually been exceptionally perceptive. But Tasha knew, that with every passing hour, it was quickly becoming less and less likely that they would get Data off this planet alive.


	5. Chapter 5

While it certainly didn’t compare to the struggle to survive on Turkana IV, becoming a citizen of the Federation was much harder than Tasha had ever imagined.

All the rules she’d learned since she was a small child didn’t apply here. In the Federation, she was expected to ask for help and communicate her needs; on Turkana IV, admitting your weaknesses would get you killed. Similarly, when she’d tried to store food in her quarters in case one day the replicators stopped producing, she’d been lectured on the dangers of rotting food. At least, once the Starfleet officers who’d found her hoard understood _why_ she’d done it, she’d been allowed to continue, so long as she restricted herself to storing non-perishables only. But the fact remained: she just didn’t _understand_ this society.

It terrified Tasha, and sometimes the sheer frustration of _table manners_ reduced her to tears. But here, she at least had food. She had shelter and protection and safety, and people dedicated to her welfare and education and who never asked for anything in return. She loved this new world fiercely, and she threw herself wholeheartedly into studying it and learning how to function within it.

And when, after three years of dedicated study and educational catch-up, Tasha joined Starfleet Academy, everything just became so much _harder_.

When she’d been preparing herself to join the Academy, Tasha had drowned herself in schoolwork and learning and education, and she’d been surrounded by teachers and mentors who knew exactly where she’d come from and exactly what she needed. It had been hard work, but it had been straightforward, and she’d never had to focus on anything but herself. The teachers hadn’t kept her isolated; they understood that social skills were as important as any other part of their curriculum and were careful to make sure she spent some time interacting with her peers. But at the end of the day, she’d always return to her private quarters and her books. Social interaction was just another class.

In Starfleet Academy, however, social interaction became a way of life. She shared every one of her classes with other students, and when she came home in the evenings, it was to a shared dormitory. Even her academic studies required her to interact with her peers; almost all her security drills involved teamwork and cooperation.

And suddenly, it didn’t seem to matter that she’d learned to use a fork and knife without looking clumsy, that she knew when to say ‘please’ and ‘thank you’, or that she’d memorized the dates of major Federation holidays. She still didn’t fit in.

Tasha didn’t have a favorite childhood holonovel. She didn’t know what _Ode to Joy_ sounded like. She’d never had a jumja stick, and it still took her a second to remember to ask “and you?” after someone asked her how she was doing. It was exhausting, and it was _all the time_. Tasha was constantly analyzing the behavior of herself and her classmates, comparing the two, and adjusting her own behavior to match. It drained her, and over time, it overwhelmed her.

It was a blessing, then, that toward the end of Tasha’s first semester, she discovered the library.

It was an enormous building, full of consoles and work spaces, dominated by silence and studiousness. It was brimming with natural light and helpful librarians who didn’t bother you unless you asked for their assistance, and it was one of the only places Tasha could be with her peers and not feel out of place. No one paid attention to her or expected her to interact, but they accepted her presence; they would move their PADDs aside to give her a place to sit at a table, and nod their thanks when she did the same for them.

The best thing by far about the library was the top floor, where wall-to-wall shelving carried more books than she’d ever seen in her life.

Contained in those shelves were all her favorites – _Gone With The Wind_ , _Lord of the Rings_ , even four separate copies of _Les Miserables_ – and thousands upon thousands of books she’d never heard of besides. Tasha took to lurking on that floor for hours, whenever the demands of Starfleet Academy and Federation society were too much to handle. She read well into the small hours of the morning, endlessly grateful that the library didn’t have closing hours. The books grounded her, and slowly, she learned to breathe again. Of course, she had a whole collection of counselors to choose from if she so needed, but that required more dreaded social interaction. In Tasha’s opinion, books were a much better option.

She started spending so much time in the antique book section that she supposed, in retrospect, it was inevitable that someone noticed.

Sometime halfway through her second semester, Tasha had her nose buried in a copy of _Middlemarch_ when a soft grunt her startled her out of her thoughts.

Tasha turned, and saw a librarian standing behind her. They were a Tellurite, with a large hardcover book clamped in their enormous, furry paws.

“Just got this in, new to the collection,” the librarian said simply. “Thought you might like it.”

And they pushed the book onto Tasha’s table. The gilded cover read “ _Meditations on a Crimson Shadow”,_ and the golden insignia at the bottom marked it as a Cardassian publication _._ Tasha picked it up. It truly was an enormous book, heavy and thick; she thumbed through it, and felt a thrill as she caught sight of page 3,458.

Tasha glanced up, intending to thank the librarian for their suggestion, but they had already gone.

Over the next several weeks, Tasha’s interactions with the Tellurite librarian continued in much the same way; the librarian would offer Tasha whatever newest books the library had added to its collection, and if Tasha were lucky, she’d be able to nod her thanks before they vanished.

But then, one day, Tasha was quick enough to ask their name.

“Tev,” the librarian had said. “Yours?”

“Yar,” she replied. “Tasha Yar.”

Tev had nodded then, and walked away. After that, they began to talk – at first just a little, a few words about their day every time they dropped off a new book, but then slowly, the conversations grew to hour-long discussions on absolutely anything and everything.

Tasha learned that the librarian’s name was Tev, and that Tev preferred nongendered ‘ze’ pronouns. She learned that Tev had lived most of zir life on Andoria, and that ze had no family and few friends, but was happy with that.

“Books are all I need. Books and students I can drop books on,” ze would say with increasing frequency.

And even for all zir reclusive tendencies, Tev was a surprisingly good listener. Sometimes, as it was for the first several weeks of their friendship, that meant understanding when Tasha wanted peace and quiet. Other times, it meant listening to Tasha panic about classes and her peers, and then offering sage advice. And then, still other times, it meant making Tasha laugh with stories of the ridiculous antics some students would get up to during finals period (“The damn Bolians are the worst – taking it into their own hands to make their classmates lighten up. Can’t they take the balloons _outside_ the library? And the Trill are no better!”).

Over the next four years, Tasha and Tev exchanged books and talked and laughed together. And while Tasha slowly grew more comfortable with her peers and being part of Federation society, Tev remained her closest friend at Starfleet Academy.

Then Tasha was receiving her diploma on a warm summer day in front of all her classmates, and her chest felt as if it were about to burst with pride. But even though she grinned so wide that her cheeks ached, she couldn’t help the pang that ran through her as she stared out across the crowd of her peers and their families.

She wasn’t the only cadet graduating without a family there to watch; students whose homeplanets were on the opposite side of the Alpha Quadrant – or god forbid, the Beta Quadrant – almost invariably graduated alone, as their families could not afford to make a six-month round trip for the ceremony. Nevertheless, Tasha found herself wishing longingly that there had been someone there to watch her accept her first pip as an ensign.

So, when at the reception, _Tev_ stepped out of the crowd, Tasha had felt her heart leap in her chest.

Tev had combed zir facial fur into neat wisps and was wearing zir best formal suit. In enormous paw, ze carried a large bouquet of roses and baby’s breath, and in the other, ze held a gorgeous antique book with a leather cover and gold titling. Tev pushed both items into Tasha’s hands and said, in a gruff, warm voice: “Congratulations, Tasha – you’re going to be a great officer. You looked like a proper captain already when you were up on stage.” 

Tasha had laughed and thrown her arms around Tev, hugging zir so tightly that ze protested: “You’re going to break my ribs, Tasha! Tellurite bones aren’t _that_ much stronger than human ones!” But Tasha just grinned.

On Turkana IV, books had helped Tasha escape her reality. On Earth, they had helped her connect to it.

**\---**

It was still hours before morning on Te’Ren’Ai II, and the night air was still slightly brisk, when Chaval shook Tasha awake.

Tasha yawned and groggily pushed herself up on her elbows. For a moment, she longed for a large cup of coffee, or even a raktajino. But then – she paused at the expression on Chaval’s face. He looked far too troubled for this to be a routine change in watch shifts.

“What’s wrong?” she asked. Dread washed over her like a bucket of cold water.

“I’m sorry – I’m waking you early – but I think there’s something wrong with Data.”

_Oh god, no_. “Why?”

“I – he’s unresponsive. I was trying to have a conversation with him, and he got slower and slower, and now he’s just not replying.”

Tasha felt the bottom of her stomach drop out. If Data was unresponsive to his environment, then he was deteriorating even more quickly than Tasha had expected – more quickly than she had prepared for. Frustration and fear and helplessness gripped at her chest like a vice; she wanted to scream, or cry. Or both. But with a deep breath, she swallowed the emotion down, and pulled herself out of her sleeping bag.

“Show me, Ensign.”

Chaval lead her from the tent. Data sat in the clearing by the glowing stones, exactly where he’d been when Tasha had first retired for the evening. He was staring unblinkingly over their heads, with an unfocused gaze that saw nothing.

“Data?” Tasha said softly.

Data made no sign of having heard her.

“He’s been like that for twenty minutes,” Chaval murmured. “The closest I got to a reaction was he seemed to look at me for a moment when I said I was going to get you. But maybe it was just a coincidence.”

Tasha came to a crouch beside Data and gently reached out to touch his wrist. “Data, can you hear me? It’s me, Tasha.”

Data blinked once – twice – then slowly lowered his gaze to look at his wrist, where her fingers brushed against his artificial skin. His expression was still unfocused, and he made no move to reply to her. But he _had_ reacted to her touch. Tasha let out a heavy sigh of relief.

“I need you to try to focus on me,” she told him, not entirely sure if he was hearing her, or if he was only capable of perceiving the touch on his wrist. “Listen to me. Stay with us, okay?”

She didn’t know too much about Soong-type androids and their functions, but somehow she felt that letting his consciousness drift away was a bad idea.

Data’s brow furrowed, and slowly, his eyes followed the line of her arm and slid upwards until he met her gaze. He frowned, apparently thinking hard.

“Ta . . . sha?”

Tasha offered him a small, relieved smile (behind her, Chaval whispered an astounded: “How did you _do that_?”). “Yes, it’s me. Keep trying to concentrate on me, okay?”

Data’s expression was strained. “It . . . is hard,” he said, painfully slowly. “I . . . I . . . do not know . . . now? Where?”

“We’re on Te’Ren’Ai II right now,” Tasha told him, hoping that was what he was trying to ask. “We’re just a few kilometers from the research center.”

Data’s eyebrows drew more tightly together, and he said nothing; Tasha wasn’t certain whether he was trying to put the information together in his mind, or if he was simply losing his grip on his consciousness again.

Tasha turned to Chaval. “Ensign, wake Allara. I’m sorry, but we need to get moving _now_.”

But Chaval hesitated. “But – the Te’Raians,” he protested. “They’re nocturnal; it’s not morning --!”

“Ensign, I am _aware_ ,” Tasha snapped sharply. “We will be careful, but if we don’t get started now, Data won’t _live_. The risk of contamination of this culture is minimal. The risk of losing a crewmember is substantial. _Wake Lieutenant Allara_.”

This time, Chaval nodded and scampered off to the tent.

Tasha turned back to Data and squeezed his wrist encouragingly. Data blinked once, but did not look at her.

Tasha swallowed hard. It felt as if a heavy blanket was beginning to settle over her senses; the whisper of wind through the ferns sounded distant, and she barely felt the rocks on the clearing floor digging into her calves. Data _cannot_ die, she thought helplessly. She was the one in command; it was her responsibility to save him. She just wasn’t sure if she could. Even if they got to the research station within the next few hours, Data was deteriorating so quickly that it was clear he needed to get off this godforsaken planet within a few _days_ if he had any hope of survival. She didn’t know how long it would take for help to arrive.

If Picard were here, he would know exactly how to protect Data – in fact, Tasha was sure _any_ of the other senior officers would be more equipped to deal with this situation than she was. It was Data’s bad luck his life was in her hands.

After a few moments, Allara emerged from the tent, yawning and bleary-eyed. “What’s going on? Why are we breaking camp early?”

“Data got worse,” Chaval told her.

“We need to get him help as soon as possible,” Tasha said. “So we can’t wait for morning. Lieutenant, you’re going to have to cast your telepathy as far as you can so that you can warn us about any Te’Raians that might cross our path.”

Allara nodded, but she looked uncertain. “Understood, sir. But – you should know, I can’t promise I will be able to sense them. There are species I can’t sense and since I’ve never been close to a Te’Raian, I don’t know if they’re one of them.”

“I know. That’s why we’ll stay under the thickest part of the forest, and Chaval will take point with you to use his eyes and ears to keep watch as well.”

“Aye, sir.”

Tasha glanced at Data. He still hadn’t moved. “And don’t bother with packing everything,” she added. “We’re going to have to leave a pack – so just wrap up the tent and hide it from view in the bushes.”

Chaval and Allara exchanged a stunned look.

Tasha knew she was taking enormous risks – traveling during the wake cycle of the native species was bad enough, but leaving behind equipment, unguarded, was practically flirting with a broken Prime Directive and a court martial. But she had little choice; if Data was so unresponsive he didn’t react to his own name, she could hardly ask him to make the hike. She was going to have to carry him, and if she attempted to carry a pack as well, she would cripple herself. She was just going to have to beam the last pack up to whatever ship came to their rescue, and hope no wayward Te’Raians happened across it first.

To their credit, Allara and Chaval worked quickly, and it took them barely five minutes to gather up all the supplies, pack what they had to bring, and hide what they didn’t. Tasha had spent that time trying to get Data to respond again, but the most she received was a slow blink.

Once their supplies had been concealed with dead leaves and broken ferns, and the two remaining packs had been strapped to Chaval and Allara’s backs, Tasha gave Data what she hoped was a comforting smile and said: “I’m going to need to pick you up now. If you can work with me, try your best – if you can’t, I’ll just sling you over my shoulders.” She wasn’t sure if he could hear her at all, but she felt that giving him warning was the polite thing to do.

To her relief, when she turned her back and arranged his arms to wrap around her neck, his grip held. As long as he could hold on, she could work around the rest of his unresponsiveness. With a bit of effort, she eventually managed tuck her arms under the back of his knees, and, with a grunt, she staggered upright. Data was certainly heavier than his size suggested; clearly, tripolymer composites and molybdenum-cobalt alloys were denser than the standard flesh and bone. But as long as Tasha kept her knees bent and back angled forwards, she would be fine.

“Alright,” she said to Allara and Chaval, sounding a lot steadier than she felt. “Let’s move out.”

\---

Almost twenty minutes into their hike, Data began to stir. Tasha felt him slowly lift his head off her back, but he wisely made no other movements that might upset her balance.

“Data?” she asked, twisting her neck at an odd angle to try to get a glimpse of his expression.

For a long moment, he was silent. Then: “Focus . . . on present. Moving?”

“Yes. We’re on our way to the research center. We should be there in about an hour.”

“. . . Okay.”

Tasha tried to shoot him a sympathetic look. “You okay?”

“I – do not know. What is . . . now? Do not know . . . memory . . . percep . . . tion?” There was a strain to his voice; he sounded more troubled than she had ever heard him before.

“It’s going to be okay,” Tasha said gently, making an effort to keep her voice as quiet as she could make it while still allowing Data to hear her. She might be willing to take a risk by traveling during the Te’Raian wake cycle, but there was no need to draw further attention to themselves. 

“I do not know . . . what is happening. I . . . do not . . . like it.” His voice dropped, and in almost a whisper, he added: “I do not . . . want to die.”

Tasha felt her heart twist painfully in her chest. Every ounce of her being felt heavy; _this can’t be happening_ , she thought. She closed her eyes and heaved a deep breath, willing the corridors of the Enterprise to appear before her when she opened her eyes again. They didn’t.

Tasha swallowed.

“I know,” she said finally. “I don’t want you to die either – I’ll do everything I can to get you off this planet safely. Listen to my voice, okay? See if you can anchor yourself on that.”

“Yes. Talking . . . helps.”

“Alright . . . I’ll keep talking then. Just focus on that.” She felt Data give a jerky nod behind her. “How about a Sherlock Holmes story?”

“O . . . kay.”

It had been a while since she had read any sort of Sherlock Holmes story, but stories were the best medicine she had. Maybe they could ground Data as they did for her. She cast around her mind for a moment, searching for whichever Sherlock Holmes story she knew best.

“It was a stormy night in September when Holmes and Watson received a visitor,” she began finally. “The visitor was a well-dressed gentleman, and he had a very interesting story for Holmes . . .”

Data stayed quiet as she told the story. She had no way to know if he was even still listening, or if his mind had slipped away again. But she kept talking, ignoring the growing dryness of her mouth. When she finished with “The Five Orange Pips”, she moved on almost seamlessly to “The Adventure of the Red-Headed League”. Still, Data said nothing.

Te’Ren’Ai’s night sky had only just begun to visibly lighten when they came to a halt at the edge of steep slope.

“There,” Allara said, pointing in front of them. “The research facility should be around there.”

They had reached the start of the foothills that lined the mountain range Tasha had seen in the distance when they first arrived on Te’Ren’Ai II. The sight made something in Tasha’s chest begin to loosen; she remembered when the mountains had been only a smudge in the distance, and now they were right up at the base of the range, mere meters from the research center. They were still far from safe, but Tasha had been beginning to feel as if they would never reach the facility. As she stared up at the rocky slope before her, Tasha felt the warm fluttering of hope uncurl tentatively in her chest.

The soil-poor terrain before them was hardly conducive to the growth of plant life, and the slope was dotted only with small, shrub-like vegetation. Tasha presumed that the earlier research team had chosen this particular foothill for their center so as to be able to observe the nearby forest without the interference of large quantities of foliage by their sensors – but with the sparse vegetation, Tasha and her team would be entirely exposed as they made their way to the top, with very few hiding spots if a Te’Raian did fly overhead.

Chaval and Allara both turned to Tasha, awaiting her decision.

But Tasha didn’t have to consider. “Keep moving,” she ordered. They hadn’t seen any sign of a Te’Raian in the hours that they’d hiked, and it must be getting close to the start of the Te’Raian sleep cycle. This was as good a time as any, and in any case, she wasn’t certain that either she or Data could handle waiting another few hours.

So, for the first time in several days, they left the protective cover of the fern forest and headed out into open land. They had been moving quickly through the woods all morning, but now they picked up their pace again, spurred by the sight of their final destination and by the desire to not be exposed for a second more than necessary.  

Tasha kept up her narration of “The Adventure of the Red-Headed League”, although her voice became more breathy and disjointed from the exertion of climbing the hill. On her back, Data shifted his weight, but she dared not get her hopes up about the state of his consciousness; her movement may have simply jostled him.

From the top of the foothill, they could see the first streaks of orange that were beginning to paint the horizon over the forest they had just left behind. They ducked under a rocky outcropping, and Allara pulled out a tricorder. The tricorder hadn’t fared well in the dampening field, but after a minutes of fiddling, Allara managed to get the device to emit a reedy kind of whine, and the screen flickered on.

She frowned at the display for a moment, and one antenna listed to the side. Tasha and Chaval watched on silently. They were so close; Tasha could almost hear her heart thudding madly in her chest.

Then: “It should be right about here.” Allara turned to run her hand over the stones behind her, searching for the concealed door.

Federation outposts on planets without warp-capable species were carefully concealed from visual detection with very primitive cloaking, as permitted by the Treaty of Algeron. These outposts were designed to open only on detection of a nearby signal that was emitted by certain Federation technologies; Allara just had to get her tricorder close enough to the enterance . . .

There was a click, and a section of the rock wall shimmered and disappeared. In its place was a large metal door, similar and size and shape to the holodeck doors on the Enterprise. The sight almost made Tasha’s knees go weak.

They had actually made it. They were _here_.

Tasha adjusted Data’s weight on her back, and she stepped forward. A panel in the rockface had appeared alongside the door, and here, she keyed in her senior officer ID code.

The panel beeped, and the door slid open.

Immediately, Tasha was awash in the comfort of familiarity. The research center was full of standard Federation technology: softly beeping science consoles, computer screens glowing with the boldly-colored LCARS system, walls made of brushed duritanium polyalloy – it was like stepping directly back onto the Enterprise.

They moved inside, and the door _swooshed_ shut behind them. The sound of the pneumatic cylinders clicking into place, locking out the Te’Raian wilderness, was like a blessing to Tasha’s ears. She wanted to collapse on the floor and drink in the sense of _home_ , of _safety._

But Data wasn’t safe, not just yet. It would have to wait.

Tasha didn’t even waste time turning to look at her officers before beginning to issue orders.

“Ensign, get to work on the distress signal. Do everything you can to boost the range – the quicker we get someone to pick up the signal, the better. Make sure you explain Data’s condition; we need all the suggestions we can get. Lieutenant, I need you to get started on the replicator. As soon as you get it up and running, start replicating as many non-perishables as you can. We brought the energy field with us; we don’t know how much longer any of the electronics here will last.”

“Aye, sir!”

Chaval and Allara deftly unslung their packs and let them drop to floor. Tasha heard the _thumps_ of the equipment hitting the ground, but she had already moved away, towards the abandoned crew quarters of the facility.

When the door to the crew quarters opened, Tasha was relieved to note that the last crew had left the room minimally furnished. There were no mementoes or tokens to make the area a home, but there were four military regulation bunks, dressed in the most basic sheets.

Carefully, she lowered Data into the nearest of these. It took a minute to unlatch his arms from around her neck, but when she managed to unclasp his grasp, he fell limp onto the mattress. For a moment, Tasha paused.

It was the first time she had managed to get a good look at him since she had hefted him onto her back, an hour and a half ago. His eyes were unseeing again, but the tightness in his brow still managed to make him look significantly distressed. It was an unsettling combination.

“Data?” she asked softly. She reached out and touched his wrist, hoping that it would help him focus on her, as it had back in the camp.

Data remained listless.

Frustration and anxiety and pure _exhaustion_ began to burn at the back of her eyes, and it took her several long, deep breaths to fight back the oncoming surge of tears. She could not afford the luxury to break down right now. With a heavy swallow and a clenched jaw to control her own weakness, Tasha draped a blanket over him and tucked it in around his shoulders. She didn’t know if blankets made much difference to him – or even if he found a mattress any more comfortable than the floor, for that matter – but it felt wrong to just leave him lying there, exposed. She hoped it helped, somehow.

There was nothing more she could do for Data. She returned the center of the research facility, making every effort she could to ignore the thought of just how helpless she was to protect her own crew.

Allara and Chaval had already busied themselves with their tasks. The screen of Chaval’s console was glowing red, transmitting a distress signal on all frequencies, and Chaval was on his knees as he fiddled with the wiring. Allara had begun to stack the newly-replicated rations against the back wall. The sight of the food made Tasha’s stomach growl, and the burning in her eyes threatened to overwhelm her again. They had _food._ It felt as if pounds of weight were sliding off her shoulders – Tasha had to swallow back a surge of guilt at her own relief when Data was still in critical condition.

Somehow, she managed to bite back the emotion. “Report!” she barked.

“Signal sent!” Chaval replied. “I’m working on networking our receivers to improve the collecting area.”

“I’ve replicated a weeks’ worth of rations,” Allara said. As she spoke, another pile of packaged survival rations materialized on the replicator tray.

Tasha nodded. “Good work. Lieutenant, once you have a months’ worth of rations, take a break. We should be prepared for the event that it takes Starfleet some time to arrive, but you’ve been more undernourished than the rest of us. You need to get a good meal into you.”

“Aye sir,” Allara acknowledged.

Neither of them mentioned that if it did take Starfleet a month to arrive, Data would not survive.

\---

The next several hours were some of the longest in Tasha’s life.

With the distress signal sent and rations replicated, there was very little else to do. Allara threw herself into studying the energy field, using the facility’s technology. Chaval and Tasha tried to lend her a hand, but neither of them were scientists. Eventually, Allara admitted that she would prefer to work alone; they were projecting impatience and restlessness so strongly that it was making it hard for her to focus.

Even finally sitting down and eating a warm, proper meal, did little to assuage Tasha’s anxiety. True, it was _bliss_ to be well-fed again, but knowing that she would live and Data very likely would not made her feel worse than ever. She had been so foolish to stress over their rations. She had given herself a migraine over a situation that never came _close_ to life-threatening, and hadn’t spared a thought for Data’s wellbeing until he was already caught in the energy field. Well, now she had all the food she could want and a dying crewmate. Tasha felt nauseous.

She pushed the rest of her meal away – it was non-perishable, so she could finish it later – and got back up and returned to the replicator. This time, she didn’t replicate food. Instead, she plugged in a few commands, and then, in a hum and a shimmer of light, a hardcover copy of _The Works of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle: Complete and Unabridged_ appeared in the replicator’s tray.

She scooped up the enormous book in her arms, and without pausing to meet the curious gazes of Chaval and Allara, she returned to the crew quarters.

Data had not moved since she left. He lay, stiff and unresponsive, exactly where she had left him. Trying hard not to think about the fact he had not so much as twitched in several hours, Tasha sat of the foot of the bed and let the book fall open in her lap.

“I can read to you properly now,” she told him. “The way you did for me, with _Les Miserables_. Try to focus on the story, okay?”

Data didn’t reply.

The first section of the book was a novel, _A Study in Scarlet_. Tasha was grateful for the length; it would keep them occupied for some time.

With one last, helpless glance at Data’s blank face, Tasha began: “In the year eighteen seventy-eight, I took my degree of Doctor of Medicine of the University of London and proceeded to Netley to go through the course prescribed for surgeons in the army. Having completed my studies there, I was duly attached to the Fifth Northumberland Fusiliers as Assistant Surgeon . . . “

\---

About forty-five minutes into the reading, Tasha’s attention was unexpectedly roused by a quiet cough from the doorway. She glanced up.

Chaval was standing there, watching them. Inexplicably, Tasha felt unsettled, as if she had been intruded upon in a moment of vulnerability. She felt grateful, at least, that he had had the sense to announce his presence.

“What is it, Ensign?” she asked shortly.

“Nothing in particular,” he replied. “Just . . . do you really think that’s going to help?” He looked cautiously hopeful.

Tasha glanced down at Data, who still hadn’t moved. His eyes were wide, unblinking, and Tasha found the expression disconcerting. She felt the urge to slide his eyelids closed, to at least give him the appearance of sleeping – but that seemed like a rather morbid action to take. Besides, Data might be trying to use visual input to ground himself. Instead, she forced her gaze away.

“I don’t know if this will help,” she told Chaval honestly. “He said it did when we were on our way here, but I don’t know if he can even hear me anymore. But I figure it’s worth trying.”

Chaval nodded, a small, rueful smile playing at his lips. ““I did the same thing for my eldest son last year, when he came down with the Ktarian flu. He was delusional with fever, so I read to him . . . I never did find out if it helped at all, but at least it made _me_ feel better about just waiting.”

Tasha glanced up. In the whirlwind of the past few days, she had almost entirely forgotten that Chaval had a family. But as she met his eyes now, she saw the restlessness in his expression behind the smile he’d always offered to the team. She felt a pang of sympathy; she wasn’t the only one eager to get off this planet.

Tasha cast her mind back, trying to think back to the personnel files she had reviewed when selecting him for this mission. If she remembered correctly, he’d never had a spouse, and had adopted both children within a month of his graduating the Academy. “Your eldest son,” she said slowly. “His name is . . . Shen?”

Chaval looked impressed. “Yes. He’s twelve. And the little one, Kala, is five.”

“Oh, right,” Tasha said. “I’m sure they’re both doing okay.”

He smiled slightly. “I know. Maria and Andres Martinez from Engineering look after them for me when I’m on away missions, and they’re excellent parents. It’s just . . . Kala really needs a Bolian caretaker right now. He’s only just learning what it means to be Bolian in a diverse environment.” At Tasha’s perplexed expression, Chaval explained: “A couple weeks ago, he held his friend’s hand in class for about an hour, and the next day, she came down with a nasty rash. When he learned that it was his sweat that had caused it, he started wearing gloves. By the time I left the Enterprise, he hadn’t taken them off yet.”

Involuntarily, Tasha’s eyes slid back to Data. She knew Data struggled with the same reality – being all too capable of injuring those around him, but unwilling to cause anyone even the slightest pain.

Tasha pulled her gaze away and glanced back up at Chaval. “We’ll get you home to your kids as soon as possible.”

“I know, sir,” Chaval answered. “Thank you.”

Then, before either of them could say anything more, there was a shout from the central room.

“Incoming message!” Allara cried out. “Sir, we’ve got a response!”

Tasha and Chaval exchanged a quick look. There was excitement and the budding glow of hope in his expression, and Tasha had to look away – she couldn’t dare bring herself to hope, not yet. Tasha shoved the book back onto the mattress. Her heart was pounding in her chest again; she could almost hear her pulse in ears.

“Who is it from?” Tasha demanded, as she and Chaval rushed into the main room.

“The Enterprise, sir!”

Tasha’s breath caught. For a moment, the thought of the Enterprise, her home, coming to get them, made her chest feel light with relief. But then, a second, awful thought and a sickening lurch in her belly suddenly pushed it away. The Enterprise had left more than a week ago. Were they the closest ship Starfleet could offer?

“Open it,” she said finally, voice strained.

Allara touched the console screen, and the familiar voice of one of the Enterprise’s Operations ensigns filled the room.

“ _Te’Ren’Ai II Research Station, this is the U.S.S. Enterprise. We have received your distress call and are enroute to your location. Expect our arrival in approximately eight days, seven hours. The U.S.S. Farragut has also been given orders to proceed to the Te’Raian system once they have completed their current mission. They may be able to reach you with six days at the earliest. Unfortunately, we cannot advise you regarding Commander Data’s condition, as we need more information about the dampening field before we recommend a course of action. We will assist when we arrive.”_

And there, the message ended.

Tasha stared unblinkingly at the console, unwilling to meet the eyes of her junior officers. After four days of hard hiking and rationing, they had reached their safehouse. They had food, and they had shelter. Now they had confirmation that help was on its way.

But in those five short sentences, Tasha had felt something in her chest shatter. Starfleet couldn’t offer any help until arrived. Eight days, they had said. Six at the earliest.

Data would not survive.


	6. Chapter 6

The silence in the research center was stifling.

It felt as if the life support in the research center had unexpectedly tripled the gravitational force. No one wanted to speak; they sat unmoving around a circular table in the corner of the room, weighed down by the gloom.

Tasha herself wanted to flee back to the crew quarters, to open up the book again and lose herself in the words until she could forget everything that was going on. Data’s malfunctions – her failure to save him – her shortsightedness – it was all pounding on the inside of her skull, threatening to overwhelm her.

But, somehow, after several long minutes, she managed to fight the thoughts back and force her mind into some semblance of order. She had to be a Starfleet officer right now, not a scared little girl.

Abruptly, she pushed herself up from the table. The squeal of the chair legs against the polyalloy floor made Chaval and Allara glance up sharply, but Tasha didn’t look at them. She focused her eyes on the floor in front of her and began to pace.

“We need options,” Tasha said aloud, after a few moments. “We have this entire facility – we have food, we have equipment, we have a replicator, we have a transmitter. What can we do for Commander Data?”

Chaval and Allara stared at her, then exchanged a blank look. They both looked utterly lost.

Tasha clasped her hands behind her back, feeling the nail of her right thumb digging into her left palm. “I want to hear whatever you can think of. I don’t care how infeasible it is, how outlandish it seems. We need ideas. We’ll figure it out from there.”

“Well,” Chaval said slowly. “We could try to get to that area that doesn’t have any of these energy fields. Maybe there is something preventing them from forming there.”

There were countless flaws with that plan, the first of which being that they didn’t have a trasporter, and by the time they hiked to the southern continent, Data would be long gone. But Tasha nodded anyway. The first step to developing a solution was opening the discourse.

Allara’s gaze was focused on the table, and her antennae were curled slightly towards each other as she thought. “If I knew more about the fields, maybe I could create my own field that would counteract the one affecting the Commander, using the equipment we have here. But I just don’t know enough about it.”

“What can we do to change that?” Tasha asked. “Do you just need more time with the equipment here?”

“Maybe,” Allara said. “But . . . I think it might help more if I could get readings from the epicenter of all of this – it’s more likely to give me an idea of the nature of everything we’re dealing with. I mean . . . there’s no promises. It might be just as hard to figure things out from the epicenter as it is from the field we’re in. But the epicenter is only twelve kilometers away from us now – maybe it’s worth a trip.”

And as much as Tasha was loath to go back into the Te’Raian wilderness, this could be a course of action that might just work. Admittedly, there were still a lot of uncertainties in Allara’s preposition – _if_ she could complete research in time, _if_ there was a way to actually dampen the fields, _if_ she could even construct the mechanism to do so – but it was something they could try. With no small amount of effort, Tasha shoved an oncoming wave emotion back to the furthest recesses of her mind and clenched her jaw. She had time neither to wallow in fear of going back out into the wilderness nor to relish in fleeting hope of Data’s survival.

“Good,” Tasha said. “Do we have any other options?’

But anything else they came up with came down to the same issue – they simply didn’t have enough information. Whether they tried to build a ‘saferoom’ for Data, attempted repairs on his systems themselves, or redirect the field, they needed to know more about how the energy network functioned to have any hope of lasting success.

Tasha listened intently to all of their suggestions. Every idea started in the same place – more understanding, more knowledge, more _information_ – but each one still offered a new possibility. Maybe none of them were particularly likely possibilities, but they were all worth considering. They just needed _one_ improbable, incredible option to work.

After about half an hour, the ideas began to peter out. Tasha gave it a few more minutes, but when nothing else was immediately forthcoming, she turned back to the junior officers with a nod such that it was clear the brainstorming session was over.

“Okay. We’ll go to the epicenter.”

\---

It was remarkable, really; they had arrived at the research center only scant few hours ago, but here Tasha was, scrambling to get packed and get out as soon as they possibly could. There was an incredible amount of work to be done before they could go – rations to be packed, equipment to be organized, tricorders to be modified. Almost all the electronic equipment they had rescued from the shuttle was now useless, having spent so many days in the strange dampening field. It all had to be replaced with resources from the research facility.

Allara was focused on transferring the data she had already gathered regarding the energy fields onto the tricorders they would bringing. Tasha finished strapping in the new tent she had replicated into one of their packs, and she stood.

Chaval was busy organizing rations into the other pack, but as Tasha approached, he glanced up.

“Ensign,” she said. “A word, please.”

He nodded.

Tasha led him to the crew quarters, where Data still lay, unresponsive, on the bunk where she had left him. The book was settled a few inches from his right ankle. Irrationally, she felt suddenly guilty that she had left him, even though the only reason she had stopped reading was to organize a rescue plan. But his wide-eyed, blank expression struck her as somehow forlorn, and it wrenched at something in her chest. She forced herself to look away.

“Ensign, I’m going to ask you to stay behind,” Tasha said. “Someone needs to watch over the Commander and stay in contact with Starfleet while we’re gone.”

Chaval nodded. “I expected as much. I’ve packed rations for you and Lieutanant Allara only, sir.”

“Good. Well, it will be difficult to communicate, because the communicators are so far gone. At most, we’ll be able to only send out short pulses. You know Morse code, Ensign?”

“Yessir.”

“Keep your communicator on, then, and boost power to it as much as you can.”

“Aye, sir.”

Tasha glanced over at Data, and again, guilt began to twist in her belly. But this time, it wasn’t because she was leaving. “There is one last thing I have to tell you, if you’re going to stay here,” she said, in a quieter voice. “But understand this is something you _must keep to yourself_. You will not mention it to anyone, during or after this mission.”

It was a credit to Chaval’s training that his expression remained perfectly controlled, devoid of either blatant surprise or curiosity. “I understand,” he replied simply.

Tasha stepped closer to Data, and gestured for Chaval to follow.

“I’m not sure if you’ll need this,” she said. “If he stays like this, you won’t . . . but since we don’t know how these malfunctions effect him exactly, just to be safe – . . .”

With gentle hands, Tasha carefully rolled Data onto his side. In her mind, she offered him a fervent apology: _I’m so sorry, Data . . . I wish I didn’t have to tell him . . . I’m so sorry._

“There’s a way to deactivate him if you have to.” Her fingers quickly found the indent on his lower back, and she tapped it gently – not enough to press it, but just to draw Chaval’s attention to its location. “This is an off switch. See it?”

She moved her hand away, so that Chaval could brush his fingers against it. He nodded.

“Good. Don’t touch it unless you absolutely, _have_ to, understand? Only if for some reason he’s threatening the Prime Directive or putting your life at risk. Because of his condition . . . if we turn him off, I don’t know how that will affect him. We might not be able to wake him afterwards.”

She didn’t add that Data was defensive about his vulnerability. She trusted Chaval understood the magnitude of what he was being told – and in any case, to voice Data’s insecurities felt like more of a violation of her promise of secrecy than was absolutely necessary.

“I understand, sir,” Chaval answered.

“He’s in your hands, then, Ensign.”

“Aye, sir.”

Tasha lowered Data onto his back again. His expression had not changed.

_Hold on, Data_ , she thought, as she stared at his vacant face. _We’re doing everything we can_.

Tasha moved toward the door. But before she could return to the central room, Chaval’s voice called her back.

“Lieutenant – sir – should I read to him? Since you won’t be here.”

Chaval was gesturing to the leather-bound book, which still nestled in the covers by Data’s ankle. He looked uncertain, but hopeful.

Tasha paused. She glanced at Data.

She wished she could do more to soothe him. Again, guilt and regret at having to leave him blossomed in the back of her mind, but she shoved it away. She was doing the only thing she could do to save his life. And she was leaving him in the hands of Chaval, a father who no doubt knew more about gentle handling than she ever would.

“Yes, Ensign,” she said finally. “Read to him. I left off on page thirty-four.”

\---

By the time they were ready to leave the research center, they only had about two hours of daylight left.

Chaval helped Allara hoist one of the packs onto her shoulders. The cooling pads were affixed around her neck again, and several bottles of water hung off the sides of the pack. Tasha hated having to put Allara’s body through any more strain – although she didn’t complain, the slump to her antennae betrayed Allara’s exhaustion.

It was just a few more days, Tasha reminded herself. At least this time, they had enough food.

Tasha shouldered her own bag and fastened it around her waist. “All set?” she asked Allara.

Allara nodded.

“Be careful,” Chaval said, the concerned wrinkle in his brow giving him the appearance of having more bands of dark blue crossing his forehead. His eyes were fixed on Allara – he, too, had apparently noticed just how much strain her body was under.

Allara smiled back at him. “We will.” She made a valiant effort to straighten her antennae.

“Keep your comm open, Ensign,” Tasha said. “We’ll be in touch.”

“Aye, sir.”

Tasha turned to the door and keyed in a command. With a hiss, it slid open, and the daylight streamed in.

The sight of the violet fern forest, rolling out below her like an ocean, was enough to freeze the breath in her throat. She’d known it was going to be difficult to force herself back into the Te’Raian wilderness, but as she stared out across alien landscape, she felt as if enormous ropes had wrapped themselves around her waist, tying her back to the research center.

She glanced up to the sky, instinctively seeking the familiar comfort of stars. But the only star visible in the daylight was Te’Ren’Ai II’s dazzling, white sun.

Tasha clenched her jaw and willed her thoughts to freeze, just long enough to take one, unthinking step forward. Then another. And another.

The distance between herself and the threshold of the research center began to grow. She felt the invisible ropes fall away from her middle. A heavy weight of unease was still settled in her belly, but movement itself grew easier. Allara trailed her silently, and judging by the direction of her gaze, which was focused on the Te’Raian soil, she hadn’t noticed Tasha’s struggle to leave the facility.

As they began to move away, a soft _hiss_ signaled the doors sliding shut behind them. Tasha glanced back, but already, the entrance to the research center was gone, camouflaged perfectly into the rocks of the foothill. Although she knew it was still there, _would_ still be there when they returned, she could not help the sickening feeling that they were once again stranded in an alien wilderness.

Tasha swallowed and shoved the thought to the back of her mind as hard as she could. “Okay,” she said, forcing confidence into her voice. “Let’s get going. We have plenty of ground to cover.”

Allara merely nodded.

This time, they couldn’t follow the shore of the lake. The direct path to the energy epicenter took them on a route oblique to the line of foothills, away from the lake. They had brought enough water for four days, but they would have to ration it. And without Allara’s frequent lake baths, Tasha was going to have to be even more careful about letting her overheat. The situation was not improved by the steep slopes of the foothills, which were a distinct contrast to the earlier, largely-flat terrain.

So they set off at a pace slower than before, and Tasha frequently halted Allara to take a break and relax under the shade of the ferns. Each pause made the bundle of nerves in Tasha’s gut twist a little tighter, but she just grit her teeth and tried to ignore it.

As dusk fell, they had covered only about six kilometers. Allara shot Tasha a questioning look, looking even more exhausted as the dying light of the day cast long shadows across her face. But Tasha shook her head.

“We’ll keep moving for a bit longer,” she said. “Keep your mind open for Te’Raians.”

“Yessir.”

Tasha couldn’t drive them too much harder. As much as she would love to hike through the night and arrive at the earliest possible moment at the epicenter, she knew running Allara ragged would be counterproductive. She needed Allara’s mind to be working at peak efficiency to interpret the data that they would collect tomorrow. Already, Tasha was functioning on only three hours of sleep, and Allara, who had taken first shift the previous night, was functioning on one. They were going to have to stop soon for some rest, but Tasha wanted to cover at least a little more distance before then.

The Te’Raian rings shone high in the sky, and Tasha noted with a start that the soft light seemed brighter than it had on previous nights. She glanced up. The enormous ferns above her had begun to thin; as they rose in elevation, smaller, shrub-like plants were beginning to dominate the vegetation.

About a half-hour after sunset, Allara let out a sharp gasp and snatched at Tasha’s arm.

“What is it?” Tasha demanded. Her free hand instinctively moved to her phaser.

“ _Te’Raians,_ ” Allara said in a hushed voice. “I –I don’t know where they’re coming from yet, but there are definitely sentient minds headed this way.”

Tasha’s gaze sharpened. “How far?”

“I don’t know; I’ve never encountered them before, so I don’t have a baseline. Anywhere between ten meters and half a kilometer.”

Tasha’s eyes darted around the immediate area, but there was no sign of movement. “Well, let’s hope it’s closer to half a kilometer, then,” she muttered. “Come on; let’s get under some better cover.”

She pulled Allara to the side, where a thick, low-lying shrub was threatening to choke a few of the nearby ferns. Tasha wriggled under it first, pulling herself forward on her forearms, and then she pulled in the packs after her. Allara was the last to squeeze in.

They lay like that for several minutes, barely breathing. Tasha’s gaze was fixed on Allara’s antennae, which twitched occasionally, but their movement did not seem to offer any information about the incoming Te’Raians. Wind rustled through the leaves, and the hum of native insects hung heavy in the night air.

Then – Allara’s entire body went stiff, and an enormous shadow passed overhead. It made no sound, but the dark shape that flew over their heads was at least twice the size of the creature that had attacked them the day before. It passed quickly – a wave of darkness that blocked out the soft light of the rings – but almost as quickly as it was gone, another flew overhead. Then another, and another.

From their location under the shrub, Tasha could barely make out the features of the Te’Raians flying overhead. She caught a glimpse of long feathers rustling in the wind and long, sharp beak, but she could not gauge an accurate wingspan, nor could she catch sight of the enormous talons she knew the Te’Raians possessed. It was too dark, and the leaves of the shrub and the fern obscured what little view she did have. But she made no move to get a better look; Te’Raians had better eyesight then she did, and if she could see them, then they could see her.

Tasha counted eighteen Te’Raians in all. By the time they had stopped passing overhead, her body felt stiff and cold. But she didn’t dare move until Allara nodded at her, signaling the all clear.

They crawled out from under the shrub, and Tasha felt her joints crack softly from the sudden movement.

“Do you sense anything else nearby?” she asked, as they dragged the packs out as well.

“No. I also got the sense they’re further out than they would be – they’re looking for something.”

Immediately, Tasha shot her a sharp look. But Allara shook her head.

“Not us. It was something they, as a species, had seen before, but not for a while. One of them was nervous that they wouldn’t recognize what they were looking for; it sounded to me that they were searching for something they knew about by only word of mouth.”

“In either case, that sounds like a pretty good reason to get out of the way,” Tasha said. “We need to get to thicker cover, then we’ll set up camp.”

They still hadn’t covered quite as many kilometers as Tasha would have liked, but if the Te’Raians were sweeping the forest, it would be reckless to push through, telepathic warning system or not.

They set up camp about a hundred meters downhill, where a small patch of ferns was dense enough to provide adequate cover. They erected the tent in almost perfect silence, and over dinner, neither of them so much as suggested the possibility of a story. Judging by Allara’s expression, she was too tired to think, and Tasha simply wasn’t in the mood to converse.

In fact, they didn’t speak at all until after Allara had rolled out a sleeping bag in the tent. By that point, Allara was so exhausted she couldn’t even keep her antennae upright.

“Which shift do you want?” she asked. “I can take first watch if  - if you . . . –“ Allara cut off suddenly, interrupted by a massive yawn.

“Don’t worry about it,” Tasha said. “We won’t do shifts – you just get some sleep. I’ll be fine.”

It wasn’t precisely untrue. Exhaustion may be itching at her eyes, and she had to clench her jaw tightly to prevent herself yawning as well, but restless energy was churning powerfully in the back of her mind. She was sure sleep would be hard-won. And if they stopped only long enough for Allara to get some rest, they could be on the road earlier the next day. After all, Tasha could get plenty of sleep while Allara studied the epicenter.

But Allara looked uncertain. “Sir, no disrespect – I’m not a medical officer, but I know that you need rest as well. Starfleet regulations --”

“I am aware, Lieutentant,” Tasha retorted, perhaps a little more sharply than she had intended. “But I’m considering our present circumstances and have decided the best course of action. I _will_ be fine.”

Although Allara still appeared unconvinced, she eventually nodded.

Allara disappeared into the tent, and Tasha took her post in the center of a nestlike tangle of vines. An unusually thick fern rose up behind her, and when she leaned back against it, it bent only slightly.

Tasha let out a soft sigh. She rolled her shoulders slightly, but it did nothing to ease the tension in her back. Above her, the Te’Raian rings peeked through small gaps in the leaves and splashed mottled patches of silver across the forest floor. Even through the thick of the foliage, the rings shone brightly. It was a beautiful scene – it would even be peaceful, for someone who was partial to planetside imagery. Unfortunately for Te’Ren’Ai’s aesthetic value, Tasha preferred the view from a starship viewscreen.

Through a gap in the foliage directly over her head, Tasha could see an unusually bright star twinkling down at her. She wondered vaguely if it was Rigel, but she really wasn’t familiar enough with the positions of the stars from this perspective to be sure.

Her eyes felt heavy. Tasha blinked and rubbed hard at her right eye, but as she tried to lift her eyelids to their full height again, they simply fluttered stubbornly.

Perhaps one more blink would help. She let her eyes slide shut . . .

\---

Tasha was floating. Stars stretched across the darkness of the universe in every direction, and as Tasha twisted to stare at a nebula passing below her, she took a moment to reflect on just how _warm_ the universe was when she wasn’t wearing an EVA suit. Starfleet really was silly, she decided. This was a much better way to experience space.

Tasha was just about to twist away again, when something caught her eye, and she paused.

One of the stars below her – a small one that glowed a pretty shade of lavender – was pulsing softly. And with each pulse, it grew a little larger. 

Curious, Tasha watched it. Now it was the size of the head of a pin . . . now a small marble . . . now, a kadis-kot piece . . .

Ah, it wasn’t a star at all. It was a planet, with swirling clouds and an shining set of rings. And on second thought, Tasha wasn’t sure why she’d thought it had been a pretty shade of lavender. It was more of an aggressive violet. She didn’t like it.

The planet had stopped growing now, stretching out below her as large as a gas giant from a scant thousand kilometers away. Tasha gazed at it, and instinctively, she knew this was Te’Ren’Ai II. It didn’t look exactly like the images of Te’Ren’Ai II she’d seen earlier, but that didn’t matter. She supposed it had a new atmosphere today.

“Hello,” she said.

“Hello,” the planet replied. “How is Data doing?”

“ _I_ don’t know,” she answered irritably. “You’re the one eating him.”

“Oh. I suppose you’re right.”

Tasha glared at the planet below her. “You should stop that, you know. Eating him.”

She sensed Te’Ren’Ai II give a kind of mental shrug. “It’s what I do.” It sounded somewhat surly now.

“Yeah, well you can’t have _him_. Can’t you eat someone else?”

“Maybe. I like him, though. And you’re the ones who came to me.”

“We’d like to go now. He’d like to go, too.”

“He’s mine now,” the planet insisted stubbornly.

“No, he’s not. And I’ll force you to give him back if I have to.”

“Why? What if I _need_ him? Don’t I get to live too?”

“No,” Tasha said. “Not if you’re eating Data.”

“Captain Picard said I can live,” it replied snidely.

That threw Tasha somewhat. She stared at it. “What? When? When did you talk to him?”

“Last night,” it snickered. “He also said I can have your quarters.”

“He did _not._ ”

“Yes he _did_.”

The planet sounded far too proud of itself for Tasha’s liking, and she scowled darkly.

“I don’t like you,” she said.

“I don’t like you, either,” it replied.

Tasha opened her mouth to say something else, but before she could get any words out, a sudden breeze blasted by her and sent her careening through space. She struggled to right herself, but the breeze was still blowing her . . .

“Lieutenat Yar?”

\---

Tasha woke with a start.

She was still settled in her nest of vines, back against the tall fern behind her. Allara was crouched beside her, one arm still extended to shake Tasha again if she needed, but as Tasha’s eyes fluttered open, she let out a relieved sigh and withdrew her hand.

Cold horror seeped into Tasha’s belly. She straightened hastily, ignoring the crick in her neck as it sent a pang of protest at the sudden movement. “How long was I asleep?”

“Only a few hours,” Allara replied. “I’ve only been asleep for five myself, and you must have fallen asleep sometime during then.”

Tasha felt heat rise in her neck. “I’m sorry.”

Allara shrugged. “It looked like you needed it. It was hard to wake you.” There was no note of gloating ‘ _I told you so_ ’ in her voice – merely an unspoken apology that she hadn’t been able to let Tasha sleep longer – but nevertheless, Tasha found she couldn’t meet Allara’s eyes.

By dozing off when she’d been meant to be on watch, she’d left Allara vulnerable. They were extremely lucky that they had not awoken to some kind of unpleasant, deadly surprise. You _never_ let your guard down on an alien world you don’t know; that was the first lesson security cadets learned in Starfleet Academy. And Tasha had failed in that responsibility.

Tasha felt flustered and shaken, and hot shame curled in her belly. She knew wallowing in guilt wouldn’t help her fulfill her responsibilities now, but it took effort to force her thoughts into something resembling pragmatism.

“Have you sensed any more Te’Raian activity?” she asked finally.

“No, none. There could have been some while I was asleep, but I doubt it. And the ones from earlier are long out of range now.”

“Good. Are you feeling well enough to get going, then?” Now that they knew that Allara’s telepathy was an effective warning system, it wasn’t overly risky to travel before dawn, but did she want to push Allara too hard and injure her while trying to save Data.

But Allara simply nodded. “Yeah, I’m ready. I’ve already packed.” She tilted her head to the right to gesture at the two packs that were already neatly fastened and sitting upright. “I didn’t want to eat until you were up, though.”

“Alright. Then we’ll have breakfast before we head off.”

They shared a meal in companionable silence. Although Allara was now well rested, she still seemed uninterested in forcing conversation. Tasha didn’t mind. It gave her some time to think.

Now that her guilt about nodding off was carefully contained in the back of her mind to be dealt with at a later date, she was able to turn her thoughts to the strange dream she’d had. While most of the dream had been largely nonsensical interpretations of their present situation, something about what the “planet” had said had caught in her mind.

“ _What if I_ need _him_?” the planet had asked. “ _Don’t I get to live too_?”

Somehow, she doubted that Data’s worsening condition was instrumental to the survival of Te’Ren’Ai II, but it did make her think of another possibility that so far she had managed to avoid considering.

At the moment, they had no idea what they could do to protect Data from the dampening field. Tasha’s imagination had figured – had hoped – that they would pursue the very first option that presented itself during Allara’s research. Develop a counter-dampening field; construct a structure it couldn’t penetrate . . . but what if the only option they discovered was to shut down the field entirely?

Tasha’s hands would be tied.

The fields interacted with their environment. Allara’s interaction with the winged predator two days’ before had shown evidence of that. And even if they didn’t have a strong reason to believe that the fields were an important factor in the Te’Raian ecosystem, the Prime Directive put the burden on the away team to _prove_ that the fields were an invasive, exotic factor introduced by a warp-capable species before Tasha could do anything to interfere.

If the only way to save Data were to shut down the fields entirely, Tasha would have to let Data die. It would be even worse than not finding anything. Tasha would watch Data die, knowing all along that she _could_ have saved him.

Certainly, she was no stranger to the hardest demands the security branch could ask of its officers. From her first day in the Academy, she’d trained for scenarios like this one, and far too often had she had to put that training to use. She’d had to choose which crewmembers she could save and which she could not help; she had even ordered officers to their deaths. In her very first week on the Enterprise, she’d had to decide which two members of her team of four would go to Deck 8 to hold off rogue Klingon intruders long enough for the residential apartments to be evacuated. Neither officer survived. She had known they wouldn’t.

And it never got easier, staring up at the ceiling and knowing that a hardworking officer was dead because of a decision she’d made, knowing that if she’d made another decision, they’d still be alive . . . and a different officer would be dead. She decided which families kissed their loved ones with relief at the end of the day, and which ones arranged funerals.

But she’d coped. Because she had to, because she’d trained for it, because it was _okay_ that it was difficult. It was never meant to be easy. She learned to handle the understanding that good people would die because of snap decisions she had to make. Never to _accept_ it – just to handle it.

But this was different. Data wasn’t some security officer she knew by name and rank and not much else, not someone she interacted with in purely professional contexts, save the odd birthday party or some small talk at shipwide events. Data was a friend. He’d been kind to her. And if she had to let him go to protect the Prime Directive, he wasn’t going to die in a hull breach or a rain of phaser fire. It would be a slow, undignified death.

Tasha’s distress must have shown on her face – or perhaps she was broadcasting her emotions again – because Allara kept shooting her concerned glances as they started their hike. Tasha reinforced her mental shields, but she did not answer Allara’s unspoken question.

There was nothing Tasha could do to change the situation. They would know what options were available to them when they arrived at the epicenter, and nothing Tasha could do would change what they would find. Nor could she break the Prime Directive.

Tasha glanced up the sky, which was just beginning to lighten. She tried to focus on the fading stars, to settle the knots in her chest, but they stubbornly refused to relax. She heaved a deep breath. They were only a kilometer away now; they would know their options shortly.

\---

Allara was helping pull Tasha over the top of an eight-foot sheer rock face when she suddenly stiffened, and her gaze went unfocused. Tasha felt her stomach drop out; she knew that expression. She scrambled up the last few inches and crouched by a bush that was one of the few sources of cover on the outcropping.

“Te’Raians?” she hissed under her breath.

But Allara had not moved, and now, she frowned. “I – no, I don’t think so. I sense something, but it’s so different from the Te’Raians I sensed last night. It _can_ ’ _t_ be the same species.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yes – it’s so different from anything I’ve ever sensed. Like a hive mind, but also individual.”

Now Tasha was frowning, too. “There’s only supposed to be one sentient species on this planet.”

“I know,” Allara said. “I’m trying to get a read on it, but it’s . . . strange.”

“Don’t try too hard,” Tasha said quickly. “We don’t know if it’s telepathic.”

“Yes, sir.”

Tasha turned her gaze towards the dusky sky, searching for avian figures in the wan morning light. She saw nothing unusual; there were a few birds fluttering over the forest in the distance, but they all appeared to be species they had encountered before – none of which had been sentient.

“Can you tell where it is?” she asked Allara. “If it’s moving?”

“It’s definitely not moving. Where . . . it’s strange. I’m not sure _it_ knows where it is. Or if it even has a sense of being in a location.” Her brow furrowed, and her antennae twitched as she struggled to pinpoint the mind. “If I had to guess . . . in the direction of the epicenter.”

Tasha felt her gut twist. If there was some kind of sentient life by the epicenter, one that was unaware of interstellar life, it could render their entire trip useless. They might not be able to get close enough to get any decent readings, and there would be nothing they could do to save Data.

But maybe Allara had gotten the location wrong, or maybe it wasn’t so close to the epicenter as to interfere with their work. Or maybe they could find _some_ way around it. They didn’t have time to wait for it to leave.

“Okay,” Tasha said, after a moment. “Let’s keep going. Keep your mind open; tell me if you figure anything else out.”

But as they made their way up the slope of the foothill, drawing nearer and nearer to the epicenter, Allara’s tight expression told Tasha that the presence was only getting stronger.

They began to creep forward more slowly, keeping to whatever small spots of cover they could find – a shrub here, a rocky outcropping there. Te’Raian vegetation was much less suited to altitudes than Earth plants; the treeline (or more accurately, fernline) began much lower, and at this point, there were no plants that reached higher than their waists. It made Tasha uneasy, especially with nearby sentient life, but still, they pushed on.

They were about five hundred meters from the epicenter. Tasha’s heart was pounding in her chest, and her stomach was twisted so tightly in nervous knots that she felt she might be sick. Her eyes burned as she feverishly scanned the landscape – the dirt, the shrubs, the sky – for whatever creature it was Allara was sensing, but she found nothing.

Allara crouched a meter ahead of Tasha, peering out around a small rock formation they were sheltering behind. Tenseness was written in every line of her body, and her antennae were twitching so quickly that watching them made Tasha dizzy.

Then, Allara inhaled sharply, and her whole body stiffened.

“Lieutenant Yar!” she gasped. “The mind – it – it’s the _epicenter_! _The epicenter is sentient_!”

She managed to turn and fix Tasha with a wide-eyed stare of shock.

But before she could say something more, a look of terror crossed her face. Her antennae flattened against her head, and she let out a sharp cry as she collapsed.

“Lieutenant!” Tasha reached out to shake her.

But her hand hadn’t so much as brushed Allara’s shoulder when a white-hot pain seared through her body, and Tasha, too, fell with a scream.


	7. Chapter 7

Pain. Everything was pain. Tasha’s entire being felt like it was on fire, burning as hot as the corona of the Te’Raian sun. She couldn’t see; she couldn’t think. The sharp taste of metal and acid burst in her mouth.

Tasha struggled to breathe, but each breath sent spikes of agony tearing through her chest. She needed this to stop – stop, _stop_. She wanted to pass out, to pass into oblivion; why was she still _conscious_?

She was just beginning to think she couldn’t survive another _second_ of this torture, and that surely she was about to die, when finally – _blessedly_ – the pain began to ebb.

It withdrew from the tips of her fingers, her toes, receding up her arms and legs, pulling away from her abdomen and chest. The pain curled in on itself in her mind until it was a small, throbbing ball by her right temple. It left her body weak and shaking, and Tasha winced with every throb of her head, but she was finally able to crack open her eyes.

Allara was sitting upright beside Tasha, her pale face ashen.

“Telepathic attack,” she croaked. “I’m shielding us as best I can, but it’s _strong_.”

Tasha swallowed. Her head gave another nasty throb, and she felt cold fear begin to seep through her mind. She’d rarely ever heard of a telepathic attack so strong that an Aenar could not entirely fight it off. But she managed to take a slow, steadying breath and nod at Allara. “Good work,” she murmured. She was dimly aware of wetness on her cheeks, and hastily, she reached up to brush it away. “Th-the attack. Is it from the epicenter?”

“Yes. I felt it recognize us, and then it lashed out.”

Tasha frowned. “Recognize?” They had never communicated with the creature before – how could it know them? Tasha winced as another throb sent pain shooting through her head, and the fear seeping through her mind grew stronger.

Allara nodded. “It feels like . . . it was expecting us.”

That was equally bewildering. The fear growing in Tasha’s mind was beginning to feel more like panic, and she tried to shove it away, but with little success. “Do you think it could sense us from that dampening field that’s focused on Data?” she managed to ask.

“I don’t know. I never sensed anything like a consciousness when we were in it, but I don’t pretend to understand the minds of all species.”

“Understood,” Tasha said. “Well –we’ll . . . we’ll pull back, and try to get out of range.”

Allara nodded.

The thought of retreating twisted Tasha’s belly with guilt; they were pulling away from the only option they had to protect Data. But they didn’t know how the creature had recognized them, why it had chosen to react aggressively to their presence, or how they could protect themselves if they moved any closer. They had no choice but to pull back and regroup.

The cold terror in Tasha’s mind was  pushing her to _move_ , to get away, to forget the creature ever existed . . . –-

Tasha paused, a frown tugging at her lips. Forgetting the creature ever existed would defeat every hope of saving Data. She was no stranger to irrational thoughts racing across her mind when she was stressed or frightened, but something about that particular thought felt odd.

Allara was struggling to climb to her feet now, but she looked faint and swayed on the spot. Alarmed, Tasha reached out to help steady her.

“Are you alright?” she asked. “Are you sure you can move? We can take it slow, figure something else --!”

The pain in Tasha’s head suddenly spiked. Tasha’s thoughts almost whited out as the pain shot through her mind like an electric shock. She and Allara let out simultaneous gasps, and Allara’s hands came up sharply to grip tightly at her own head. She dug her fingernails into her scalp as a low, desperate keening began to escape from her throat.

The pain receded again after several, horrible, long moments.  Allara was visibly shaking now, her brow furrowed so deeply that she couldn’t even open her eyes. The cold terror in Tasha’s head was growing stronger, and now there was a sense of nervous urgency as well, unfurling and pressing in on her mind, making it harder to breathe, harder to think. She pushed back at it, willing it away –

\-- But something was strange. Tasha and fear were old friends. She knew the way it churned in her belly and snagged in her chest; she knew the way it burned in her mind, and how it tasted sour in her throat. But this was different. It didn’t grow in her stomach or twist at her insides, and the energy pulsing into to her feet and hands felt oddly sluggish.

This emotion, this _terror_ – it was seeping from her throbbing temple, both familiar and foreign.

The flash of insight took Tasha by surprise. Her eyes widened, and one hand came up to brush against her temple. Her heart was pounding, and – ah – there was _her_ anxiety, beginning to curl in her belly. The alien fear in her head entwined with her own nerves, both growing as a decision took root in her mind.

“Lieutenant,” Tasha choked out. “I’m – I’m going to need you to drop the shields.”

Allara’s eyes flew open, and the pain in Tasha’s head spiked as Allara’s control slipped. “ _What_?”

“If you drop the shields now, will you be able to pull them back up after a few moments, if I tell you to?”

“Yes,” Allara replied. “But dropping the shields would expose us to extreme psionic stress; it would--!”

“I know,” Tasha said quickly. “I don’t have time to explain, but I have an idea. Drop the shields on my signal, but be ready to pull them back up if either I say so or if I’m unresponsive after thirty seconds.”

“Yes, sir,” Allara answered. She still looked uneasy, but she did not argue further.

“And it is vitalthat you drop _everything_ _–_ all at once, do you understand?” Tasha was speaking quickly now; the fear was growing in her mind, and she wasn’t going to be able to control it much longer.

“I understand.”

“Okay.” Tasha took a deep breath to steady herself, and she let her eyes slide shut. “Then – _go_.”

The shields collapsed.

Tasha screamed as agonizing pain tore through every fiber of her being. White spots danced in her vision, and she felt her limbs burn with invisible flame. But she did not fight it, and Allara’s shields did not come back up.

The telepathic onslaught faltered, as if stumbling at the sudden loss of resistance.

Tasha felt the surprise and confusion filtering into her mind. With the creature distracted, the pain began to ebb – just for a moment, but it was long enough. Tasha hungrily latched onto her brief clarity of mind, gathered up every scrap of her control – and _pushed_.

She was four years old, sitting on her father’s lap, _The Little Prince_ open in her hands, and his hand was rubbing soft circles against her shoulders as he coaxed her in a low, sonorous tone: “ess-en-tial. Yes, that’s right – ‘what is essential is invisible to the eye’,” and he was smiling at her, warmth crinkling at the corners of his eyes --

– She was scrawny and dirty, with matted hair and scrapes on every inch of skin, and she was being lead down pristine corridors, stars streaking past the windows as the ship carried her far, far, away, and the doors were opening on an enormous room with a _bed_ , and Commander Li was saying: “I’m sorry there’s not much here, but it’s yours,” and it was more than Tasha had ever had in her life --

\-- She was standing on the lawn of Starfleet Academy in her best dress uniform, chest aching even as her face glowed with pride, and then Tevwas stepping out the crowd, a bouquet of roses and baby’s breath in one enormous hand and a beautiful antique book in the other, and ze was handing them both to Tasha, saying: “Congratulations, Tasha – you’re going to be a great officer” --

\-- Data was crouched beside her under an enormous fern, patiently reciting _Les Miserables_ as she fought to bring her breathing under control, and he didn’t understand emotions, and he didn’t understand _people,_ but he cared and knew enough to _try_ –

The memories converged on one another, entwining and blending and blurring together, but that was okay; the specifics weren’t important. She gathered them up and in a single, powerful burst of psionic energy, she directed a pulse of gentleness, kindness, warmth, concern, and _safety_ to the presence in her head. It was a question, asked with feelings, rather than words.

_Are you okay?_

Tasha felt the creature’s confusion spike in her mind. The anxiety was still there, but its bewilderment was distracting it from mounting any further attacks. Tasha felt a brush of a question, caught a glimpse of feathers, of the sun blocked out by enormous wings, saw the image of a cruel, sharp beak.

 _Not them_ , Tasha promised. _We’re not the avian Te’Raians_. She projected a feeling of _earth_ , of two sturdy legs rooted to the ground.

She felt the presence in her mind reach out cautiously and begin to delve deeper into her thoughts. There was no aggression this time – merely wary curiosity, as if it were investigating them. Tasha opened her mind to it, encouraging it to see that they were not a threat. She called up the memories of kindness and gentleness and warmth again and wrapped them around the presence like a security blanket.

 _Stars_. The thought wafted across to her, awed and soft. _You are from the stars_.

Tasha winced; Starfleet wouldn’t be pleased. But she was sure that the creature would know if she tried to tell a bald-faced lie, and she hoped that a traumatized telepath picking information out of her brain wouldn’t quite count as breaking the Prime Directive.

 _Yes_ , she replied finally.

 _Not them,_ the creature echoed. _Not them. You’re not them._

The creature’s thoughts weren’t in _words_ , exactly, but passed through her in the form of images and sensations. This one was communicated in a wave of relief so strong it chased the breath from her lungs and made her knees feel weak.

 _Yes,_ she said again. _Not them._ Then, with as much gentle concern as she could muster, she asked: _What did they do to you?_

There was a pause, and Tasha hastily chased the question with an outpouring of understanding, of patience – _You don’t have to tell me_.

And at first, the anxiety emanating from the creature was so strong that Tasha felt sure it _couldn’t_ tell her. But then – Tasha gasped as hesitant trust brushed at the corners of her mind, and she was suddenly plunged into a roaring river of memories that were not her own.

\-- She was _existing_ in a vast, rolling plain of lavender grass – young, weak, curious; her telepathy sought out the primitive minds of the Te’Raian fauna that produced electrical energy: the predatory lightning-birds that hunted with electricity, the hive-mind rodents the burrowed under the earth and communicated with energy impulses, the insects that drove off threats with small shocks. She absorbed their energy, not enough to kill, just enough to sustain her life and grow, and it was a beautiful, peaceful existence--

\-- The social avian species was expanding their civilization, but she didn’t pay them any heed; they didn’t produce energy and they didn’t bother her, but she noticed they had the strongest minds of any other species she had encountered –

\-- The civilization began producing energy, on enormous scales – she could absorb what she needed faster than ever – but she could sense their mounting anger, and she didn’t understand; it never hurt them; she didn’t touch them; she just needed the energy –

\-- They were looking for her now; she could sense it in their minds, and she didn’t know what they wanted, but something about their thoughts made her nervous, and she knew she couldn’t let them find her – but when her reach stretched across the entire planet, it was hard to stay hidden, and it was only inevitable that they would eventually find her center –

\-- It was worse than she could have imagined; they were draining her; they were ripping the power she had borrowed back out of her and more, and she was growing weaker, and their cities lit up with her power, and they had created an ugly machine that sent painful pulses right to her center if her reach got too close to the electric power they had decided was _theirs_ –

\-- She was so weak now, barely even existing, and she was still fading, but they wouldn’t stop, and they kept draining her and killing her – why wouldn’t they _stop_? She would never touch _their_ energy again, if only they would just let her go, and she learned to use her telepathy to communicate, to beg, to plead, but they still wouldn’t stop, oh please, why wouldn’t they stop, she couldn’t hold on anymore –

\-- She learned to turn her telepathy into a weapon, something to use to drive them away, but she was so weak; it didn’t work, and she couldn’t stop them --

\-- She faded. And for some time, there was nothing.

\-- She came back into existence, and the avians had left her; they thought she was gone, and she was blessedly alone, but they were still everywhere, growing, hungering for her energy, and she was scared –

\-- She moved her center from the plains they had found her in, and she never touched it again, never absorbed energy from the creatures that lived there – she couldn’t bring herself to brush her reaches anywhere near it again. If she could she would never touch anything near an avian settlement, but they were everywhere, and she couldn’t escape them –

\-- They were looking for her again; she could sense it in their minds, and she was scared – it was going to happen again; it was going to be pain and exhaustion and _dying_ , and she sensed someone getting close to her, and they were from the stars, they weren’t avians, but the avians were getting close, and –

\-- _Help me._

When Tasha came back to herself, she was gasping and light-headed. Judging by Allara’s floored expression, she, too, had felt the entire exchange in her mind.

“No wonder it attacked us,” Allara murmured. “They hurt it so much. And it’s right about them looking for it – that must have been what those Te’Raians we saw last night were searching for.”

Tasha nodded stiffly. She didn’t trust her voice to be steady; the telepathic exchange had left her feeling dizzy, and the creature’s fear and anger for he avian Te’Raians was still coursing through her in white-hot sparks of energy.

“How did you know?” Allara said. “That it was just scared – that that would work?”

It took Tasha a few more moments before she could steady herself enough to answer calmly. “I felt its fear in my mind during its attack,” she replied finally. “But I wasn’t sure that would work – it was a chance.”

“In your mind?” Allara echoed. A contemplative expression crossed her face. “I . . . I think I might have felt that, too. But I thought it was just my own fear.”

“That’s what I thought at first, too. But I realized it felt just a little different from what I was used to.”

Allara was looking extremely impressed, but Tasha didn’t feel any pride; the only reason she was able to recognize the difference was that she had spent so many years unable to control her own fear. It wasn’t a victory.

Before Allara could say anything more, Tasha pushed the conversation back into safer, more practical waters. “The epicenter . . . the creature . . . asked for help,” she said.

Allara’s expression turned grave. “It did.” Her reply was simple, her tone flat and unassuming. But Tasha knew they were thinking the same thing: when an individual asks directly for help, the Prime Directive didn’t prevent them from interfering.

There was a pressure in Tasha’s mind again; the creature was clearly nervous about its burgeoning communication with them, and although Tasha had accepted its story, it was unhappy about the pause in their emotional conversation. Tasha sent it a gentle pulse of patience: _Wait._

To Allara, she said: “What are our options?”

“We can’t do anything permanent without Starfleet’s approval, but we might be able to set up some sort of protective barrier in the meantime. But I think we still need to know a lot more about the nature of this creature – we can’t protect it, if we don’t know what it’s vulnerable to. I think we’re going to need to get closer.”

Tasha nodded. “That will also give us a moment to think about how to approach the subject of Data.”

At that, Allara frowned. “You don’t think it will refuse to let Data go, do you?”

“No,” she said. “It never wants to kill – I saw that in its mind. I think it’s likely it doesn’t _know_ it’s killing Data; it’s not like Data is anything it has been exposed to before. But this creature is _scared_ , and others being angry about the way it absorbs energy has hurt it before. We’re going to have to be careful about not seeming like a threat.” 

“You mean, with a structured emotional projection? Like you just did a minute ago?”

“Sort of,” Tasha replied. “But last time I just _flooded_ the creature’s mind. I think that’s too aggressive now, and this is going to have to be more carefully nuanced and controlled. Now that the conversation is open, I think you’re going to have to do it. You have more experience with telepathic communication. Can you do that?”

If Allara was nervous about the concept of running a highly sensitive talk with a species they had only just made first contact with, her expression didn’t show it. She nodded.

The pressure in Tasha’s mind was growing again. The creature was more anxious now; it felt vulnerable and exposed, evidently expecting the avians to show up at any moment.

 _Help_? The thought floated into Tasha’s mind, accompanied by a distinct sense of urgency.

 _Yes_. Tasha answered. She projected protectiveness, curiosity, warmth – _Can we come closer?_

There was a pause, and a fluttering of hope. Then: _Yes_.

Tasha glanced over at Allara. “We’re in,” she announced. “Let’s get moving.”

They didn’t have to rely on tricorder readings to direct them this time. The creature’s presence in their mind led them forward, urging them through the sparse landscape of the foothills. They hiked up the slope, taking a route that listed slightly to the west, and as they moved higher up the hill, the tilt became stronger. Eventually, they were moving fully parallel to the base.

The terrain flattened out. They had arrived at a plateau dotted with ferns about as tall as Tasha’s knee, and in the distance, a sheer cliff face rose abruptly up from the windswept soil. Tasha frowned slightly; the presence in her mind told her they were very close, but as she looked out across the plateau, she saw nothing that might be the epicenter of an enormous, energy-based lifeform.

She was beginning to wonder if the creature was merely invisible to human eyes, but a whisper in her mind urged her forward. They moved across the open field, and when they had almost reached the sheer cliff, Tasha felt the sudden urge to turn left.

She obeyed, and her breath caught in her throat.

As a Starfleet officer, Tasha had been trained to consider all manner of possibilities that could emerge throughout the galaxy. The environments that the universe could come up with were often at once terrifying and incredible; lifeforms that emerged from even the same evolutionary tree could be so diverse that they were not recognizable as lifeto one another. Tasha had learned to expect all this, but the universe never lost the ability to sweep her away with the sheer _beauty_ of its infinite creations.

Cleverly tucked into a small pile of fallen rocks glimmered a shine of white-blue light. The way the stones were arranged made it so that the glow would be impossible to see from above – in fact, only if a Te’Raian avian were standing exactly where Tasha was at that moment, would they be able to see the creature.

And as Tasha watched, the creature began to ease itself out of its cocoon of stone.

The light swirled toward her, converging and brightening as it approached. Flickers of energy escaped from the edges, like the embers of an open flame, but the way the light danced across the creature’s surface gave it the sheen of water. The being was shapeless; it twisted and curled in on itself, then stretched out again, growing and shrinking restlessly.

Almost on an impulse, Tasha reached out one hand toward it. She didn’t intend to touch it – physical contact with the epicenter of an enormous energy-based lifeform might have serious unintended consequences – but the gesture of connection felt appropriate.

The creature appeared to observe her for a moment. At least, she assumed that was what it was doing, based on the sense of curiosity, of _interest_ that was emanating from her temple; the creature didn’t have any visible sensory organs. Tasha watched patiently, quelling the spark of nervousness that remembered the power of the creature’s earlier telepathic attack.

 _Friend_ , she projected.

The form before her began to twist and grow. Tasha watched as the figure elongated, thinning as it drew itself up taller. A small mass of flame-like light began to bud at the top of the figure, flickering as it stretched forward. The end of the bulb closest to Tasha tapered into a rounded point, and the dancing light above the point parted slightly to form two symmetrical gaps.

Tasha couldn’t help a broad grin spreading across her face. The glowing figure before her had morphed itself into an approximation of a humanoid shape – simplistic, but distinct.

A glimmer of energy escaped from the center of the creature and floated towards Tasha. It didn’t quite touch her outstretched palm, but it was close enough to cast its glow across her skin. Tasha recognized the movement as an imitation of her own gesture of friendship, and she sent a sharp pulse of warmth to the presence in her mind.

A cautious tendril of thought answered her. _Hello_.

Tasha grinned. _Hello_.

The creature’s grow brightened.

 _Help_? it asked.

 _Yes_ , Tasha said again. _Help us, too? Friends?_

The thought that filtered across to her next was a tumble of curiosity, mild surprise, and anxiety. _What do you want from me?_ the creature murmured. Tasha had to fight back a flare of anger at those who had made it so nervous of a simple question.

“Lieutenant,” Tasha said, not looking away from the creature even as she addressed Allara. “Are you ready to ask about Data?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Then do it, now.”

But as Allara’s analytical mind brushed against the connection between Tasha and the creature, Tasha felt panic suddenly spike from the foreign presence at her right temple. Allara let out a sharp gasp.

“Gentler thoughts, Lieutenant!” Tasha said sharply.

“I’m trying! And it’s trying to listen to me; I can feel it trying to communicate. But I don’t think it trusts my mind, sir!”

The figure before Tasha was beginning to dim and shrink back, as if it was trying to make itself less visible. Her heart twisted, and she wrenched her gaze away to stare at Allara.

“Pull out!” Tasha ordered.

Immediately, Allara’s antennae fell limp, and she physically stepped back. Tasha felt the cold rationalism of her thoughts withdraw from the connection.

Allara turned to Tasha, frustration written across the lines in her face. “I’m sorry, sir. It was trying to listen, because it knows I’m with you, but something about me terrifies it. It trusts your mind only. I think you’re going to have to be the one to do this.”

Tasha had come to the same conclusion, and she felt her own panic rise in her gut. Data’s life was relying on her emotional control, and already the creature was nervous. She wasn’t capable – she was going to fail – they were so _close,_ but Data would die –

A gentle touch against her shoulder made Tasha turn. It wasn’t a true grip, just a brush, enough to catch her attention – Allara was offering her a small, supportive smile.

“You did it last time,” she said simply.

Tasha swallowed hard, and nodded.

The creature’s presence in her mind was restless – its fear was growing, and Tasha felt the beginnings of a telepathic attack shoot from her temple. It wasn’t strong or decisive; it felt like the attack was unintentional this time, but that the creature was trying to pull back its instinctive response.

Tasha focused on the presence at her temple and projected _safety_ as strong as she could – _I’m sorry. You’re safe – it’s just me. I won’t hurt you – promise, promise, promise_.

She felt the creature latch onto her thoughts desperately, and she curled a sense of gentleness around it. _Won’t hurt you_ , she murmured.

 _Yes_ , the creature thought back cautiously. _Safe_.

For several long moments, Tasha simply continued to soothe it with soft thoughts. She pushed back her own anxiety, and slowly, she felt the creature began to calm.

Finally, it sent another thought toward her. _You need help?_ The nervousness and suspicion hadn’t entirely left its telepathic voice, but now there was a sense of concern for _her_ filtering through their communication as well.

Tasha hesitated. Then, as gently as she could, she sent out a quiet thought: _Yes_.

She called up her memories of Data, and laid them out across her thoughts like a telepathic holovid:

\-- Data reclining in his chair, a Meerschaum pipe pressed against his lips as he reveled in childlike enthusiasm of his discovery of a fictional character that was so much like him yet still _human_ , so much like he wanted to be –

\-- Data with his fingers caught in a Chinese finger trap, shooting his Captain a sheepish look; she had smothered a grin as Data stared in undisguised wonder at the small, centuries-old children’s toy –

\-- Data’s firm command voice demanding an immediate evacuation, professional and certain – Data’s drawn expression of self-doubt and guilt as they realized the malfunction was a ploy; “It wasn’t your fault,” she had said, but he had simply stared at her helplessly–

\-- Data lifting a child from a pile of smoking rubble, his powerful arms gentle as he cradled her head, and his expression was so soft, so pained as it became clear the girl was lost; at moments like this, Tasha felt it was impossible that Data didn’t have emotions –

Tasha could feel the creature in her mind, perusing the thoughts she presented to it with open curiosity. A tendril of warmth reached out to her; the creature accepted the value she placed on this ‘Data’. It might not have understood many of the images of her world, but her understanding of Data as innocent, curious, dedicated, and gentle was unmistakable in the thoughts she laid bare.

Tasha heaved a deep breath, and offered up a new set of images.

\-- Data dropping the fruit on her head, and a strained expression was crossing his face, even as she assured him she was okay; she tossed the fruit up to him, but and he missed it again, and she had known in that moment that something was very wrong --

\-- Data holding his phaser uselessly as a predatory lifeform threw itself at Allara; he was trying to aim, tracking the beast’s movements with the nozzle of his weapon, but he was too slow –

\-- Data’s weight heavy on her back as they raced toward the research center, his weak, plaintive voice barely audible as he murmured: “I don’t want to die”, and her heart was twisting; “I don’t want you to die either,” she’d said. “I’ll do everything I can to get you off this planet safely” –

\-- Data lying unresponsive on the bunk of the research center, not noticing as Tasha tucked him in, not hearing her voice as she read to him, and he was dying, dying, dying; the field was killing him –

Tasha felt the creature’s presence withdraw sharply in her mind. It had understood the source of Data’s predicament.

 _Don’t hurt me_ , it thought desperately. _Didn’t mean – don’t want to hurt – sorry, I’m sorry -!_

Panic and guilt were spiking erratically from her temple. The creature was pulling back from her thoughts, and it was moving too quickly – Tasha tried to reach back out to it, but she felt only a mounting sense of blind terror. It thought she was angry with it, that she would hurt it in retribution for hurting Data; it began to push back at her, protecting itself the only way it knew how.

Tasha grit her teeth. Pain sparked at her temple, but it wasn’t yet the all-consuming pain that had incapacitated her before. She wrenched up every ounce of psionic power her psi-null physiology afforded her and focused all her concentration on a single thought until it was a shout in her head.

_NOT YOUR FAULT._

The creature faltered. Its panic didn’t die down, but it paused just long enough for Tasha to press forward, flooding it with her mind.

 _Not angry – please help – don’t want to lose him; care about him – so scared he’ll die; it’ll be my fault – please help_. . .

She pushed forward her grief, her helplessness, and her fear, willing the creature to see that there was no aggression, no anger, in any of her thoughts.

_I don’t want to hurt you; I just want him to live._

Finally, a thought drifted back toward her. _Just help? Just free Data?_ The mental voice was heavy with suspicion, but it was communicating again, and Tasha let out a heavy sigh of relief.

 _Yes. Please_.

There was a pause. Then, an odd sensation, somewhere halfway between taste and touch, filtered into her mind. It was sharp and overwhelming, but from the creature’s memories, she knew the source was odd . . . difficult . . . she remembered her first attempt at eating a persimmon, and thought the annoyance of picking clean each individual seed was an apt similarity to the frustration currently underscoring the creature’s understanding of the sensation.

 _New energy_ , the creature thought.

Tasha caught a glimpse of the creature’s first experience of the energy – four days ago, the first spark of the distinctive sharp flavor had danced across its consciousness, exotic and intriguing. The creature had never felt anything like the energy signature of this new source before, and even as the source continued to move steadily across hundreds of kilometers, the creature had followed it doggedly.

 _This one_? it asked. _This is . . . Data_?

 _I think so_ , Tasha replied. The novelty of an entirely new form of sensing was in itself overwhelming, even without considering the powerful flavor the creature perceived Data as having. She felt somewhat unsteady, but the creature thought this source of energy was alien enough to be Data, and its first sense of the odd flavor matched with Data’s arrival on the Te’Raian surface. _Please_ , she thought desperately. _Free him_.

 _I release him now_ , the creature promised. _Data . . . is free_.

Relief swept through Tasha. Warmth unfurled in her abdomen, just under her ribcage, and as it began to radiate throughout her body, she couldn’t help the broad smile that spread across her lips. They’d done it . . . Data would be safe . . . she’d promised him she’d figure this out, that she’d protect him, and, somehow, she _had._ Tasha’s knees felt week.

 _Thank you_ , she thought fervently. _Thank you_. She opened her mind to the creature, willing it to sense the relief and gratitude that permeated every thought.

A tendril of warmth answered her.

To Allara, Tasha said: “Lieutenant - get a message out to Ensign Chaval. Tell him the field should be gone. Ask for Data’s status.”

She heard Allara inhale sharply behind her. No doubt, Allara had sensed the discussion in her mind, but Tasha’s words had finally confirmed what she’d hardly dared to believe. _“_ Yes, sir.”

 _Never meant to hurt_ , the creature told Tasha, an undercurrent of guilt pushing into her thoughts. _Sorry_.

 _I know_ , Tasha replied. She sent it a pulse of warm forgiveness.

The creature’s glowing epicenter began to pulse slightly.

“I’ve sent the message sir,” Allara said. “It may take a few moments for Ensign Chaval to get a response out for us, especially since his equipment has been in the dampening field until now, but I think he will at least receive our message.”

“Good,” Tasha replied. “In the meantime, we did promise aid to this lifeform. Are you ready to get started on that?”

Allara grinned and flipped open a tricorder. “I am indeed,” she said.


	8. Chapter 8

A week and a half later, Tasha found herself standing outside Engineering at three in the morning, dressed in a bright orange off-duty tunic and carrying a half-written report in one hand.

It was the day of Data’s last set of repairs. For the three days since Tasha and the rest of the away team had arrived on the Enterprise, a team of Engineers, supported by Lieutenant LaForge, had worked around the clock to fix whatever the dampening field had done to Data. Today, Data was meant to be waking up – that is, if everything had gone according to plan.

Tasha herself had been taken off-duty for a few days by Counselor Troi to recuperate from the stress of Te’Ren’Ai II. She had a counseling session at the very start of alpha shift the next day, but Tasha had not been able to sleep knowing that Data was undergoing the android version of intensive surgery. She’d tried working on her report of the events that had transpired on Te’Ren’Ai II, but had found it impossible to put words to her thoughts.

So, she’d taken her PADD and a stylus and set off through the corridors, hoping that a little exercise might break through the block. She’d meant to wander aimlessly, but it seemed that her feet had an agenda of their own; they carried her right to the entrance of Engineering.

To her surprise, Captain Picard stood outside the door as well, nursing a cup of earl grey. As she approached, he glanced up and straightened his shoulders into a firm command presence that was out of place on someone loitering nervously in the hall.

“Good . . . ah . . . morning, Captain,” Tasha greeted him.

“Good morning, Lieutenant.”

There was an awkward pause. Tasha glanced at the door to Engineering. Picard looked staunchly ahead.

“I was, uh, working on my preliminary report from the mission,” Tasha said finally. “Sorry it’s late; I should have it done by tomorrow evening.”

Picard nodded. “Understood. You _are_ off-duty, Lieutenant; some tardiness is excusable.”

“Thank you, sir.”

Picard adjusted a crease on his uniform, but before Tasha could say anything about his presence outside Engineering, he continued: “You may also be interested to know the research team now on Te’Ren’Ai II has just sent an update. We are currently considering establishing a dialogue between the energy-based lifeform and the avian species, if we can avoid exposing our presence to the avian civilization in the process. In the meantime, the team is working on converting the research base into a permanent sanctuary for the energy-based lifeform’s epicenter.”

“Oh,” Tasha said. “I’m glad to hear that. Thank you for letting me know, sir.” And she was glad; having the creature’s consciousness within her own mind for a week had made her quite attached to the being, and she felt responsible for its wellbeing. She _had_ promised it safety.

But she had promised Data safety as well, and now he was undergoing intensive repairs that no one had ever attempted before. Tasha’s gaze slid to the door of Engineering.

This time, Picard’s eyes followed hers, and his lips tugged downward. A crease appeared in his brow. He said nothing, but Tasha had rarely seen him so worried.

“Are you going in, sir?” she asked after a moment.

“No,” he replied, tearing his eyes away from the door. “I’m on duty. I need to return to the bridge.”

It was almost unheard of for a captain to have the bridge during gamma shift, barring a red alert. Captain Picard taking gamma shift to keep occupied during Data’s repairs almost spoke more to his concern for Data than his presence by Engineering did.

But Tasha made no show to demonstrate that she’d recognized the significance of his actions. “Understood,” she said simply. “Good night, then, sir.”

Picard nodded and stepped away from the door to set off down the corridor. But just before he rounded the corner, he paused.

“Please let me know if there is any change in the Commander’s condition,” he added.

Tasha offered him a small smile. “Of course, sir.”

Picard vanished.

Tasha turned back toward the door. For a moment, she hesitated; she wasn’t entirely sure what she could contribute to the repair team. She wasn’t an engineer, and the chief of security had little purpose in a sickroom. Perhaps, she thought ruefully, she should just return to her quarters.

But she _had_ promised to keep Picard apprised of the situation, and in order to do so, she had to be aware of what was happening. At the very least, she should pass on the Captain’s request to be kept informed to Data’s repair team.

Tasha stepped forward, and the door slid open to admit her.

Inside, the Engineering section that served as Data’s operating room was bustling with activity. Admittedly, it wasn’t quite as frantic as Tasha’s anxious imagination had expected it to be, but nevertheless there was no lack of action; Lieutenant Commander Argyle and his assistant chief engineer were crouched behind Data, where a panel of Data’s skull had been removed to expose his positronic brain. Geordi stood beside them, directing their repairs and occasionally consulting the PADD in his hand, while three other junior engineers monitored Data’s vitals.

Doctor Crusher and Nurse Ogawa were also present, which Tasha understood; while their biological expertise was wholly useless in caring for Data, they werestill responsible for the wellbeing of _all_ the Enterprise crew. On the other hand, Tasha _hadn’t_ expected Counselor Troi, but she was there as well, sitting at the far side of the room, with her back against the wall.

An atmosphere of steadfast resolve had settled over the room, driven by the tireless efficiency that Starfleet’s flagship was known for. Communication between the team was quick and to the point, and each individual executed their roles with steely-eyed determination.

As Tasha entered the room, Geordi glanced up and gave her a small nod, but quickly returned to the PADD in hand. It was Counselor Troi who came over to greet her.

“Hello, Tasha,” she said kindly. “I didn’t know you were coming, but it’s nice to see you.”

“Thank you,” Tasha replied. Her gaze flitted about the Engineering section, taking in the focused team and their purposeful activity. “I’m not sure how useful I’ll be here, though; I don’t want to be in the way, so I probably shouldn’t stay. I just thought I should let you know that Captain Picard wanted to be informed if there was any change in Data’s condition.”

Troi nodded, with a small, knowing smile. “Yes, I thought he might. But I actually think it will be very good for Data to have his close friends here when he wakes up – do stay, if you can.”

Tasha blinked. She felt a hesitant warmth blossom in her chest, and she turned to glance at Data, whose sightless eyes were fixed unblinkingly on the ceiling. _Close friends_ , Troi had said, and Tasha found, to her surprise, that the statement was accurate. _When had that happened_? she mused, recalling just two weeks ago how insistent she’d been to keep Data at professional arm’s length.

“You really think that’d be helpful?” she asked.

“Of course,” Troi answered. “His vulnerability on Te’Ren’Ai II will most likely have intensified his feelings of estrangement from the rest of the crew, as it is only because he is an android that he was affected. Having his friends here when he wakes up will help combat that by making him feel like part of the community.”

Argyle stimulated something in Data’s brain, and Data’s lip twitched. The result was something that looked like the ghost of the intrigued half-smile Data reserved for the most peculiar of human mannerisms. It made Tasha’s heart twist in her chest.

“Alright,” she said, finally. “I’ll stay.”

Troi beamed. “Wonderful.”

\---

Three long hours crawled by. Troi and Tasha spoke in hushed voices, mostly of the shipside events Tasha had missed while she’d been stranded on Te’Ren’Ai II. Focusing on the repairs Data was undergoing was torturous; even with the team’s constant activity, progress was painfully slow. Sometime around five in the morning, Troi left to get a raktajino. Tasha, unwilling to leave – although she knew Data was in hands more capable than her own – declined.

Tasha hadn’t anticipated how exhausted she truly was without Troi’s conversation keeping her occupied. It felt that only a few minutes had passed since Troi had left Engineering when Tasha was being shaken gently awake.

“Tasha, wake up,” Troi said softly.

Tasha jerked into consciousness. “Wha . . . how long was I asleep?” She blinked hard, and rubbed furiously at her eyes. Dregs of sleep still clung to her thoughts, disorienting her, but she shook her head to clear it.

“Only about an hour,” Troi replied. “But Data’s about to wake up. I thought you might want to know.”

“Data--?”

Immediately, Tasha pulled herself to her feet. The panel of Data’s skull had been replaced, the synthetic hair smoothed back into order, and his eyes were finally closed. He looked, for the first time, as if he were properly asleep. The junior engineers were still monitoring his vitals, but the atmosphere in the room had shifted into one of barely-contained triumph.

“Has Captain Picard been informed?” Tasha asked.

“Yes, I just did,” Troi replied. “He said he’s on his way, but not to wait for him to wake Data up.”

Geordi and Argyle were peering at Data’s vitals now and comparing it to the PADD in Geordi’s hands. Apparently, what they saw was good news, because after a moment, an enormous, ear to ear grin split across Geordi’s face, and even Argyle’s severe expression relaxed.

“Looks good to me,” Geordi said. “Let’s do it.”

“I agree,” Argyle replied.

They moved back toward Data, and Tasha took a half-step forward, breath caught in her throat. Her fingers itched, desperate to dosomething, anything, to ensure that Data _would_ return to them, completely unharmed.  But it was out of her hands. A prayer burned in her mind – _oh, please, let this work; let him be okay_.

Geordi lifted Data up from the workbench with gentle arms and leaned him forward to expose his back. One of Geordi’s arms snaked down the line of Data’s spine to the deactivation switch, and then, with a deep breath, he pushed it.

Data’s eyes flew open.

Tasha couldn’t help the small gasp that tore itself from her throat as Data sat up. On anyone else, the sharpness of the movement would have been startling, but on Data, it was _right_. He was staring around the room with quick, jerky movements, a perplexed expression taking in his surroundings, and for the first time in almost two weeks, his eyes were _alert_.

“Data!” Geordi exclaimed. “How are you feeling?”

A bewildered frown furrowed Data’s brow just slightly, but the expression was free of the discomfort that had plagued his features on Te’Ren’Ai II. “I . . . I am on the Enterprise?” he said uncertainly.

Geordi clapped him on the back. “That you are, my friend.”

“. . . I do not recall arriving here.”

“You wouldn’t,” Geordi assured him. “The damage that dampening field caused made it impossible for you to form new memory engrams for a time. That should be fixed now – but Tasha managed to get in contact with us and then get you out of the dampening field so that you could survive long enough for us to get here.”

Data blinked, and then his eyes fell on Tasha, who was still standing nervously at the corner of the room. His eyebrows lifted slightly. “Thank you for saving my life.”

Tasha shrugged. “Of course I did,” she said. It was an underwhelming statement, but the enormous grin that was beginning to make her cheeks ache betrayed the true depth of her relief.

“Data, I’m going to need to run a few diagnostics, okay?” Geordi was saying now. “Thank God your vital systems were organized by your positronic matrix, which wasn’t effected by electronic interference, but I still need to make sure everything is in working order.”

“That is acceptable,” Data said.

An hour later, the Engineering team declared Data to be in perfect working order, with no adverse side effects of having been in the dampening field. At the news, Tasha would have been perfectly happy to throw her arms around Data in relief, if not for the fact that he was completely surrounded by Engineers. She settled for reaching around Geordi to clap Data on the shoulder.

Data had looked up at her then, and gave her one of his small, earnest smiles. She grinned back.

He was going to be okay.

\---

Two days later, Tasha collapsed on her couch, weariness heavy on her feet and the taste of synthehol bitter on her lips. Blindly, one hand came up to fumble with the fastenings of her dress uniform.

Ensign – _Lieutenant_ – Chaval’s promotion had been a short ceremony, but it had certainly been among one of the better ones Tasha had attended since her posting to the Enterprise. The small event hall where they held junior officer promotions had been packed with what seemed like the _entire_ off-duty roster, all come to see the friendly ensign receive his second pip. Shen and Kala had been there, too, accompanied by Allara; little Kala had been perched in Allara’s lap, gloveless hands settled proudly on his knees, and Shen sat beside them with a grin as wide as his father’s. When Captain Picard had proclaimed Chaval to be a junior lieutenant, with all the privileges and responsibility afforded by the rank, both boys had raced to the front of the room and began to climb up Chaval’s legs to express their support. The startled expression that had crossed Captain Picard’s face then had been so profoundly _flustered_ that Tasha had had to smother her laughter in her sleeve.

Tasha excused herself from the following celebrations after about only two hours; she had been cleared to return to duty for alpha shift the following morning, and she was eager to throw herself back into her work. No doubt, the pile of paperwork demanding her attention had grown so large that it had achieved sentienceduring her absence.

But just as Tasha went to remove her communicator from her chest, the door to her quarters chimed.

Tasha groaned. “One moment,” she called. She quickly refastened her dress uniform and pulled herself back to her feet. “Come in.”

The door slid open. Data stood in the entrance, also still wearing his dress uniform; he, too, had been at the promotion. They hadn’t had much opportunity to talk at the event, as Data had been absorbed in a conversation with some engineering officers for most of the evening.

“Oh, hi, Data,” she greeted, even as she cast her mind around to try to figure out why he was visiting her quarters at this hour. “You left the reception, too?”

“Yes. I have the bridge for gamma shift. I must return to my quarters to change into my duty uniform.”

“Ah,” she replied. “So, why are you . . . here?”

“You left the reception before I had the opportunity to converse with you,” he said. “I wanted to inform you I have filed a recommendation that you receive a commendation in command for your actions on Te’Ren’Ai II.”

Tasha stared.

“I . . . what?” She was so startled that her mind had lurched to a full stop. “A _commendation_?”

She had simply been happy to get off the planet alive, healthy, and without incurring a court martial. And now Data was talking about _awards_.

“Yes,” he replied, not noticing her slack-jawed stare. “Even if Starfleet does not award you the full commendation, I believe that most humans find it agreeable to know when their actions have been praised.”

“But -,” she spluttered. “I didn’t _do_ anything worth a commendation! You almost _died_!”

Now Data was staring at _her_ , a perplexed expression crossing his face. “I did not die. Because of your actions, I survived. The entire team returned safely to the Enterprise, and you successfully established first contact with a non-corporeal telepathic species and prevented its murder.” He paused. “In fact, as that individual is also the entirety of its species, you prevented a genocide.”

It certainly sounded impressive when Data said it like _that_. Tasha had to swallow a laugh. She hadn’t even known what she was doing most of the time on Te’Ren’Ai II – it felt as if she had simply stumbled into survival through sheer luck.

But as she watched Data, seeing the earnestness in his wide-eyed expression, she smiled.

“Thanks, Data.”

Being stranded on Te’Ren’Ai II had been one of the most emotionally exhausting experiences Tasha had endured in a long time. It had called up all of her resources and left her drained. Surviving hadn’t made her feel any stronger, or braver, even if she had somehow pulled off something resembling a competent command.

But if there was one positive outcome that had occurred as a result of the experience, it was that Tasha had found a true friend in Data.

Tasha took a step forward, and, without a second thought, wrapped her arms around him.

She felt Data stiffen slightly under her embrace. But then, hesitantly, his arms came up to awkwardly wrap around her torso and return the hug.

When they pulled apart, Data was looking faintly pleased with himself, and Tasha couldn’t help a grin.

“Thank you,” she said again. “Thank you for the recommendation . . . and thank you for telling me.”

Data inclined his head, acknowledging her gratitude. Then, he said, sounding almost apologetic: “I should return to my quarters now. My shift starts in fifteen minutes and forty-six seconds.”

“Of course,” Tasha replied. “I’ll see you tomorrow, then.”

Data nodded, then stepped back and turned down the corridor. The door slid shut behind him.

Tasha turned back to her quarters. The starfield that stretched past her window streaked by, twinkling slightly in the interference of the Enterprise’s warp bubble.

To be here, home on the Enterprise, after the ordeal of Te’Ren’Ai II, felt like a dream. She’d been back for almost a week, but even so, she kept expecting to wake up and find herself lying on her back under purple ferns and a starry sky glowing with planetary rings.

But to have Data come to her, commending her on a mission she felt she’d barely scraped by – it startled her. It was the exact kind of thing that Data would do, the exact kind of thing that always took her by surprise, no matter how much she came to expect his gentle, generous nature. It grounded her, pushed away the wariness that lurked in her mind, and helped her truly, finally, feel like she was home.

On her way to the bedroom, Tasha paused. Then instead, she stepped closer to the window. She watched the stars speed past, calm settling in around her shoulders, as the Enterprise carried her further and further away from Te’Ren’Ai II.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Many thanks to my incredible editor, [pushingspacies](http://pushingspacies.tumblr.com), for her incredible support throughout this fic! 
> 
> Additional thanks to [thegirlwithmanynames](http://thegirlwithmanynames.tumblr.com) and [silentcameo](http://silentcameo.tumblr.com), who graciously contributed further editing help (and for a fandom they weren't part of!).


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